Last week I made a quilt. Yes, it’s just a t-shirt quilt. And no, it’s not perfect. But I love it. It’s full of memories…

the quilt top

There’s the matching t-shirts Eric got us at a restaurant in Wisconsin. There are the crazy amount of Sturgis motorcycle rally t-shirts I own. The Vandelay Industries t-shirt Eric got me when we were dating. Concert tees, college shirts, and a t-shirt I got in Switzerland as a kid.


And despite all of its mismatched corners and not-so-straight seams, to me this quilt is beautiful. Because I created it, because of the memories I see in it, because it’s mine.


When I was in high school, I was convinced that I had to do something amazing in order to be memorable to people. I was convinced that unless I was completely original and fantastic, my life wouldn’t have meaning.


Now, though, I’m beginning to feel that my life (and each of our lives) is something like my old t-shirt quilt. It’s full of memories that are unique to me. And its beauty, its significance, comes not from whether everything is perfect, but from the simple things that it represents. As I look back on my life, I haven’t really done anything that hordes of people would consider “fantastic.” I don’t know how many people will actually remember me years and years from now. But I have been a wife and a mother, a daughter and a sister, a friend. In doing those things, I have created life-long memories. And those memories are what make up the quilt of my life, no matter how tattered. They may be simple, but they make something beautiful.

The Tragedy of Immoral Means