Birthday Bonanza

Sore feet and exhaustion are the hallmarks of a good party, right?

This weekend was the culmination of about four months of planning and preparation and it came off with only a few hilarious hitches.

One day last fall, at the second family funeral in four months, I thought, "Wouldn't it be nicer to honour people and say kind things about them while they're still alive?" Just then, a picture of a tribute to my mother drifted through my mind. She had a big birthday coming up and is an avid quilter. By avid, I mean obsessed.

If my mother sat down at her sewing machines this afternoon to cut and scrap and stitch 24 hours a day, she would still have fabric left in the boxes and bags that line the walls of her sewing room five years from now.

You cannot go to her house without seeing the progress of her latest project, and starting in 1976 her standard wedding gift to my cousins has been a quilt. There are 25 of us on my Dad's side, 14 on Mom's side.

I thought that day, "What about a quilt show for the big birthday?" The folks at the fair rented me the hall and the racks they use for the quilt competition each fall, and I put out the call to my cousins about their wedding quilts. Could I borrow them? I kept it to Ontario, thinking it might be too much trouble collect the quilts from Alberta, New Brunswick and BC, and slowly, starting in April, the quilts started arriving at my house. Some were dropped into my porch on a weekday afternoon, some were left at another cousin's house for pickup, some were nearly falling apart, they'd been used so much. One cousin wouldn't give me hers until this past Friday, since she wasn't sure what to use on her bed for the weekend.

In the end, with a lot of help from my mother's friends, there were 24 quilts on display.

Mom knew about the party but not about the quilts. My big brother and my husband had a bet on what she would say when she came through the door. Neither of them put any money on her being speechless.

Mom also didn't know the fair board had installed wifi so the grandkids in Australia could come to the party, too.

She has shown her warmth and love to so many people, I was glad 200 friends and family members took the time to give a bit of it back while she can appreciate it. I'll have to start planning something for her 90th, but that can wait while I catch a nap and get a massage for my poor aching feet.