Spring is here.

Photo credit: Her husband Scott

The color is coming back — into the trees, into the garden, into the air itself. Sandy loved spring, its vibrant electric greens and raucous wildflowers. She loved its audacity, the way it shows up after all that cold and grey and just *insists* on being beautiful. That was Sandy too.

I have been her friend for 52 years. I am still learning what it means that she is gone.

For our prompt ‘Save the World’ I am making an art quilt to honor her.

Not because I always know what to do with grief — I don’t. Since losing Sandy I have felt unmoored in ways I didn’t expect. My creative energy, usually my most faithful companion, went quiet. Words stopped coming. Color felt far away. I think that happens when someone who filled every room with life suddenly isn’t in any of them anymore.

But slowly, the way spring always does, something is beginning to move again. And it is moving toward her and her beautiful blue eyes.

Sandy was love in human form. I don’t say that lightly. She walked into a room and the room changed — warmer, funnier, more alive. She had a gift for giving you her whole attention, the kind that makes you feel, for however long she was talking to you, that you were the only person in the world. And she meant it. Every time.

She was fiercely loyal. Feisty and protective of the people she loved. Wickedly smart. And she could make you laugh in the middle of your worst day.

She also loved to sing. And spring. And new beginnings.

This quilt is my new beginning.

It is my way of putting her back in the room — of making something you can stand in front of and feel, even if you never had the privilege of knowing her. I want you to meet Sandy. I want the color and the warmth and the fierce tenderness of her life to reach you through fabric and thread and the particular kind of love that doesn’t know what to do with itself except *make something.*

I am still working on it. But I wanted to introduce you to her first, before you see the piece — because that’s how Sandy worked too. She met you, and then she stayed with you.

She is still staying with me.