Life...and saying goodbye to Esther

Today included moments I wish I could erase from my life. I received word of the passing of my friend, Esther. Esther was one of my antique sewing machine collector friends who was just a riot to spend time with. A tribute to her memory can be found here. This is a picture of her making tatted doilies for those of us in attendance at our treadleon gathering academy last summer (Michigan TOGA). The doilies are for the spool pins of our sewing machines. She was wearing her favorite shirt.

Esther's husbands message to me said she was struck by a virus and passed when it attacked her heart. He was unable to access her work e-mail address until just recently, so he was unable to notify us at the time of her passing on the 26th of February. Phil and I are going to have this picture printed for him and visit soon. It is probably no surprise that she was on my mind recently, we had talked a few days before she passed. I was asking her opinion of washers and dryers and trying to decide which of the hand tatted doilies she gave to me, to place on my little hand crank sewing machine.

It wasn't until about lunch time that I finally received word from my friend's Tina and Karen through my husband. I was in meetings all morning and it was terribly difficult to not fall to pieces when I received word of the loss of this wonderful friend. While I worked on, Karen and Tina started making plans on ways our group could pay our own tribute to our dear friend, and to try to soothe the loss of all. More on this later.

It was mentioned that my tag line and mission, reminded someone of Esther. It is fitting of what I know of my short years with Esther in my life that "What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others".