The Meaning of Life

When my father passed away I asked my husband, “Cats and quilts, do you think that’s a good meaning of life?” He said he thought it was fine.


Honey and Smokey "helping" me quilt by depositing fur on my projects.

The day following the funeral we went antiquing. I found a charming 1930s quilt top and a remarkable appliquéd quilt that was hand quilted from the 1850s or so. I think of that quilt as my “inheritance”. After antiquing we had lovely omelets at a café filled with locals. They made their own salsa. Outside the windows they had loaded up five or more birdfeeders. I watched the finches and sparrows flutter in the cold, sunny Texas winter morning.

I think about life and death every day because of my job as an oncology nurse. The cliché “every day is a gift” just also happens to be true for all of us. I share this thought with my patients with advanced disease.

A year after first treating a patient she was back on our hospital unit. She said, “You’re the one who told me ‘every day is a gift’.” She told me she used the gift of a year well – going to Paris with her thirteen-year-old son. When she was having anxiety I had her close her eyes and visualize being in Paris with her son at a sidewalk café by the Eiffel Tower sipping café au lait and munching on a croissant. A small smile came over her face and I saw her shoulders relax down into the hospital bed.

When my father died I also asked myself was I doing what I should be with my life. The answer was yes – and a big part of that yes was being an oncology nurse and caring for patients and their families. The other part was the warm and fuzzy, quilted, loving home I have with my quilts, my husband, and two cats.

It’s hard to lose loved ones. When my uncle Walter passed away I wrote this poem:
- Note to Caroline-
life passes -
spirit endures.
death parts us –
love lives on.