Mickey Mouse Quilt - much later and a friend lost....

Funky old washing machine - surprisingly there are newer models of this

Another gap - my last blog post was Wednesday, 28 June 2017. I was looking forward to finishing a special quilt - all about  Mickey Mouse for my friend Paula. We have been friends since we were about 4 years old. You will have to read the other post to see how this quilt actually came together. This post is about Paula. 

She always loved Mickey Mouse - just Mickey, not "that slut Minnie". Mickey was everywhere in her world. 

Paula and I grew up together in Coney Isand, West 29th Street- she lived near Mermaid Ave, I lived closer to Surf Ave. She attended OLPH, I attended PS 288. Back in those days, in that place the only differences we noticed, and then after ignored, were religion. It was common to ask if you were Protestant or Catholic - we did not care at all about anything more than whether or not we would be in the same school group. So our friendship was outside of school, but at home, on the streets and on the boardwalk. 

We shared Barbie dolls, music, secrets, smoking, meeting boys, kissing boys, walking everywhere to find those boys. We had to finish washing the dishes at her house before she could come out and hang with me. We had to do her family laundry before we could have the Saturday free. The laundry was done - in one of the  Hoover mini double tub agitator machines- like this (image is from Pinterest  clicking on the picture should  take you there but I only mention this as an image credit, not to send you to Pinterest). So it was mostly hard work, by hand, and then we hung things out to dry on the line.  All this so that we could hang out and try not to find too much trouble in our world. Trouble did find us though, fairly often in those streets. 

The fun stuff was music and boys, the not fun stuff was having to run for our lives when things became a bit rough. This was Coney Island in the 70's. 

One day, life was beating me hard and I had to "get out of Dodge". I simply packed a suitcase and headed to Canada (I was 14) in search of safety and sanity at my Grammy's place. I found this... but that is not the story I am sharing now.  Paula stayed behind and did not really understand why I left - she had some idea, but not exactly right. She was mad at me for leaving her there to fend for herself. We stayed in touch over the years, by phone, by letter, with an occasional visit to Brooklyn... and our lives each took the other fork in the road.  

Life was not that kind to her... and she really was deeply hurt that I had left her. I had been in so much pain of my own that I could only think about getting away myself - and I had no concept that my leaving would impact anyone. We lost each other for a dozen years or so. I could not find her. I was pretty sure that she was dead- because I knew well what we left behind us was not that rosy.

And one summer day, as I was sitting and quilting on my quiet back porch, the phone rang.  She found me again and I was so happy. So happy that she was not forever lost... and we started to work and try to heal our very wounded hearts and souls. 

My sewing partner

She "not so patiently" endures my late night sewing

But she does feel comfy on a quilt

My life went on a tough but good path - loving husband, kids, house and time to do stuff that made me feel good. Hers was pretty rough - she had a loving husband too  - but life was a far greater struggle and she had many more painful challenges and losses than I, and this did weigh on her.   She only had two people left in her life - her husband, and now that she found me, her sister. 

Paula is the person I swear with, drank with, shared the deepest wounds and secrets, laughed with and cried with. And she nagged me to no end to make her a Mickey Mouse quilt. 

I spent a few years collecting the fabric - this was tough because Disney controls those licences  very carefully. The fabric had to have ONLY Mickey on it (not even a hint of that slut Minnie). Baby Mickey was also a non-starter. the challenge was on, and my friends helped. Eventually I had enough fabric. And I was able to start this quilt. I never told her though that I finally was making it for her. Now you can read the in process blog posts: The Mickey Mouse quilt is happening and Mickey Mouse is still a WIP. I kept telling her "one day". 

This was a secret project, I hoped to get it quilted before the end of June (2017) but that did not happen. I had some travel to do, and I headed off to India for a few weeks. It took a few weeks to catch up to life again so it was the end of August before I could pull the quilt out again.  It made me giddy to think of how surprised she would soon be. 

Exciting, ready to quilt this amazing Mickey Mouse quilt that would make my friend (of over 55 years) feel loved - and it would be something that was hers! (Remember - lots of rough times happened and she had lost everything so many times over on her life journey). 

Then that call came. Joey called to tell me she was in ICU, no brain activity, she had a haemorrhage and now she was on life support.  Over the next three weeks of this, every day Joey and I talked, what should we do, what would she want. I know she did not ever want to be kept alive by machines or medical intervention - she wanted to not hurt anymore. But... how could we make a choice like this? How could we make a choice to let her go - we loved her - we were her family, her life, her world. She was slipping away - organs failing, body shutting down, doctors telling us there was nothing, not even hope left in her. it was nearly a month before her heart stopped beating. 

And this whole time - there was her quilt. She would never smile and snuggle under it. She would never be so happy, so pleased, feel so specially loved because she finally had something that was only and especially hers.  I did finish it. I sent it to Joey because it belonged to her.  

I really was not able to open this blog after that and update it because that last post was about making that quilt. And the very, very painful life lesson that it now was - sometimes it is too late. 

The Front (80" x 80)

The Back

Paula (I was only person allowed to call her by this name, she was "Candy" to everyone else), I miss our long talks, and the crazy-crazy that was our story.