Noelle's Quilt

NOELLE'S QUILT

When I was a young mother raising six children, all a year or two apart, I sewed most of their clothing. After years of collecting scraps from their many outfits, I decided to make quilts with the leftover material. At the time, with so many children, I was always short of blankets.

The first quilt was quickly claimed by my fifteen-year-old son, Dante, who still treasures his baby blanket. It was made of mostly denim squares, and was bright, warm and practical. Now thirty-four years-old, my son will not part with that quilt.

Twelve-year-old Noelle begged me to make her a similar quilt. Her quilt, howerer, was more whimisical, filled with squares from nightgrowns and tee-shirts to party dresses, reminding me of the biblical, "Joeseph's coat of many colors," and Noelle loved it. It covered her bed ever day, accompanied her to sleep-overs with friends and was a favorite possession until the day she was struck down by a drunk driver on a lovely summer day when she was fourteen-years-old. She died of massive spinal cord injuries, after lingering in a semi-coma for the ten longest days of our lives.
Her quilt was passed on to her closest sister, Kelly. who wrapped it arround herself in an effort to retain the closeness of Noelle. I lost all desire to sew another quilt.

Now nineteen years later, with the loss of Noelle still causing a soreness within our hearts, my daughters and I take out her quilt and reminisce her life.
"Mom, see that square ? It was from the skirt and vest that she wore constantly," her oldest sister Kimber says in a soft, awed tone.

"Look Mom, that piece was from her favorite nightgown," her sister Kelly adds, in an equally subdued voice. "You made one almost like it for me."
I run my hands lovingly across a red plaid square, a piece from matching Christmas outfits that I had made for my three youngest girls, and let my mind drift back in time.
"I can't remember any of these squares," says Nicole, who was only eleven when her sister died. "Except for this one, which you made into those awful jeans that only Noelle liked."
Some of my children were embarrassed, especially during their teenage years, to wear home-made clothes instead of name-brand clothing. But not Noelle. She loved the outfits I sewed and wore them proudly
My sons Michael and Dante do not share these times with us nor does my husband. The memories are too painful for them to recall. Women, and my daughters are all women now, seem to need tangible things to cling to in times of great loss.
As we contemplate the soft, colorful squares of her quilt, we are made poignantly aware that Noelle's quilt, though somewhat tattered with age, holds a rememberance of her life. And we find comfort in this. Noelle is gone from us, but her favorite blanket is quilted with memories of her love, her essence-fabrics woven forever in time.

New exerpt from AND THE WHIPPOORWILL SANG

My mother moved into the apartment building in October. The beach house was too expensive for her now that Sal was gone. She took the vacant apartment at the opposite end of the hall and began redecorating the drab three rooms with the ardor of a high priestess adorning her temple. I shuddered in apprehension. My mother had an obsession with certain colors, particularly pink, black and gray; heavy on the pink. My childhood homes were inundated with those horrid colors, every room without exception. She wasn't alone. Those colors were popular in the fifties, but my mother took the fad to extremes. I hated pink so much that I refused to buy clothing, even baby clothes for Kim, or household furnishings that bore any hint of the putrid color.
“Now Baby, I don't want you to see the apartment till I'm all finished,” Mom said, lugging her supplies down the hall. “It's going to be a surprise. Your Momma's gonna turn this hovel into a palace.”
It's going to be worse than I thought, I said to myself and willingly stayed barricaded behind the walls of my own apartment, dreading the day when her artistic endeavors would be completed.
Two days later, Billy knocked on my door.
“Mom says come see the apartment,” he said, a whimsical smirk spreading across his freckled face, his hazel eyes trying hard to look innocent.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“You'll see,” he said, grinning.
I had to admit as I gingerly moved throughout her small apartment that my mother had surpassed my wildest expectations.
The ceilings were painted jet black with sparkles glued to them. Mom flipped on the glaring overhead florescent light fixture and the ceiling became a starlit night sky. The walls were various shades of pink, ranging from rosy mauve to hot fuchsia. The old enameled stove shone a glossy black with iridescent pink knobs, and the refrigerator radiated hot salmon. The floor tiles, which were pale gray to begin with, did little to tone down the gaudy ambience of the room.
Since pink was strictly a feminine color,(something my brothers may have pointed out) my mother did the boys' room in red and black, with lots of stripes. Her own bedroom continued the pattern of pinkness, and included a starlit ceiling.
“What do you think, honey?” she asked proudly.
“There are no words to describe it,” I hedged.
“I know,” she sighed. “It's better than even I could have imagined. But wait. The bathroom is the best yet.”
I steeled myself and followed her to the bathroom. As I walked into the tiny cubicle, I fought the impulse to cover my eyes with my arm. The sink and toilet were painted in slick black, the walls shocking pink with decals of gray swans attached at random. The ceilings were, of course, sparkled black, and the shower curtain, partially concealing a bright purple shower stall, was a nauseating shade of light lavender with zigzagging stripes of black and gray. A fluffy purplish-pink rug hugged the floor and matching towels hung from the single towel bar behind the door, topped with black wash cloths.
“Mom, you've outdone yourself,” I said, edging toward the outer door of the apartment, fighting a wave of vertigo.
She nodded. “I knew you'd love it.”
“But you know, Mom, I don't think enamel fixtures are supposed to be painted.”
“Don't worry, Baby,” she said. “By the time the paint starts to chip off, I'll be long gone. I'm not staying in this dump forever.”
“What do you suppose the landlord will think?” I called down the hall as I headed home.
“Honey, he's gonna love it!”
I had my doubts about that. Our landlord was a short, squat, grumpy man in his sixties, with thinning white hair, and quick, darting eyes that seemed to constantly evaluate whatever they fell upon. He had a tendency to spit when he spoke, and we soon learned to stand at least six feet away from him, preferably not downwind. He was always dressed in threadbare, gray suits when he visited the apartment house each month to collect the rent, and was notorious for popping in unannounced. His wife was about four and a half feet tall, almost as wide and had the largest thighs that I had ever seen on a human being. From the knees down, her legs resembled tree stumps, with no definition at her ankles. She had small, beady eyes placed too close to a hawkish nose which nearly met her thin, bitter lips. Her hair, what there was of it, was a wad of steel grey that matched an unyielding personality.
Their names were Mr. and Mrs. Miller, and we had immediately dubbed the apartment building, “Miller's Landing”. Aside from charging exorbitant rents for a run-down hole of a building that they were not inclined to maintain, their major vice was nosiness; particularly Mrs. Miller. They had master keys to all the apartments and thought nothing of entering our home during our absence. This really annoyed Butch.
“I'm sick of this nonsense,” he said, one day after we returned home from shopping in time to see Mrs. Miller leaving our apartment.
“We'll have to get a bolt lock and a chain for across the door,” I said. “I want one anyway for the kids. They're tall enough now to open the door and leave.”
“Right,” he said, thoughtfully. “But first I'm going to teach that ugly old bat a lesson.”
“What are you going to do?”
“You'll see,” he said, refusing to say anything more.
The first of the month rolled around and the Millers came for their rent. I had taken the kids for a walk down the five-mile boardwalk that ran along the beach. I was on my way home, when I spotted Mrs. Miller charging down the long staircase faster than I had thought it was possible for fat people to run.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Miller,” I said, lifting the kids out of the stroller. “Is something wrong?”
She sputtered something unintelligible at me, and hurried out of the building, her face beet red and small venomous eyes blazing furiously.
What has he done now? I thought. He probably insulted her and now we're going to get evicted. I carried the kids upstairs, leaving the stroller in the doorway, and called out to Butch.
“In here,” he said.
I walked over to the bathroom. He was sitting there, buck naked, reading the Reader's Digest.
“You didn't.” I said.
“Yep, she walked right in on me. I bet she never sneaks in our apartment again.”
It was unlikely that she would. She purposely avoided us both after that incident, but we put the chain across the door anyway.
When I told my mother the story later that day, I asked her what the Millers thought of her apartment.
“They never said a word,” she said. “They just walked around the apartment and stared at it for the longest time.”

rewards of writing, AND THE WHIPPOORWIL SANG

The rewards of writing . . . And the Whippoorwill Sang
By
Micki Peluso

While writing the book was something I had sworn to do as a promise to the one I lost, it was both blessing and bane. There were times when I laughed and times when I cried—just like my readers. Assome of you know, many supernatural events happened as I finished the book. Parts of the book seemed written by someone other than me and while I was happy and relieved to finally write, ‘The end’, that was also painful. I had brought my daughter back to life while writing of her funny, wonderful life and in ending it; I lost her, yet again.
Now that I have marketed and sold the book for the past six months, I’ve been blessed with remarkable happenings. I knew the book would both entertain and move many people, but I had no idea to what extent. I have been pleased and amazed by the amount of letters, e-mails, and phone calls I get from readers. This book has been able to ease their pain, promise them hope, and comfort them in their own trials. I never saw that coming and it contines to astound me.
I have boys, aged fifteen and up, to older men at eighty-two reading the book and finding something in it for them. I had imagined my audience would be strictly women with children, but that has not been the case. Teachers and librarians from her High School write me with their own remembrances of her, as well as her classmates and friends. Many, after reading the book go to her gravesite and leave flowers. Some of them e-mail with stories and experiences with Noelle that I never knew, and for that I am grateful. Again, I am overcome by these things. Some, having known her long ago, are torn between wanting to read the book and afraid to trust their emotions. What was started as a promise has become a fulfillement far beyond my wildest expectations. I could ask nothing greater than to have this book make a difference in the lives of those who read it. Knowing that some who read this book may become more aware of the dangers of drinking and driving, and more importantly, realize that life is made up of choices—choices which dictate life and death—inspires me to want to write more books. Having teenagers read the book is another blessing, as they realize that teenagers from 1959 to today are basically the same. I pray that they will, with help from this book, stop and take responsibily for the both their safety and the lives of others. As proud and humbled as I am from the reaction to . . . AND THE WHIPPOORWILL SANG, I believe that somewhere in another realm, Noelle is smiling.