It is not often that something hits you completely out of the blue, but this phone call did: my stepmother, my second mother for the past 40 years, was diagnosed with brain cancer. Inoperable, aggressive, irreversible. The diagnosis had come that morning and no one was sure if she had days, weeks or something more, but the inevitable end was coming soon. After a moment of stunned silence, a single thought filled my mind, perhaps my entire body: I needed to send her a quilt. In an hour I was at the Post Office sending off a quilt I had made from one of my fabric collections, Asbury, that told the story of the Jersey shore, the place of her childhood summers when the boardwalk was truly alive. Amidst all of my sorrow and confusion, the act of sending her that quilt was a singular instance of clarity.
