This is an excerpt that I wrote for the memorial service at my work. I have the best job imaginable. I work with 67 residents, I get paid to come up with and do programs with them. It is a job where I learn something new everyday, it keeps me grounded and amazed. Since Novemeber we have had 11 resident's pass away...it has been a hard winter to say in the least. I always close with a poem that I find and I will include it as well. The quilt has a significance in the generations that live at Fenelon Court. Some made their own quilts in the day, or they might have had mothers or grandmother’s who were quilters and made the quilts that kept them warm. Some of those very quilts can even be found on the beds or in the rooms in these very halls. Quilting in the past was a necessity, it was a social event, it was one of the first act of recycling…taking snippets of fabric and piecing them together. The individual pieces were unique on their own. Some were muted, some brilliant, some stiff, some worn, some strong on their own, while others were delicate and needed the strength of the stitches and pieces surrounding them to bring out their own intensity. It was pieced together with time, patience and love. They were created not knowing what the end result would be until you had sewn the final stitch, whether you had followed a pattern or not. To finish a quilt you needed layers which on their own might not have had as much significance but put together they would create something amazing.
It is kind of like Fenelon Court. We are all little pieces with our own stories our own knowledge our own experiences independently we are valuable but when we are stitched together it becomes something greater than ourselves. There always comes a time when a part of the quilt becomes tattered and worn and might need to be patched with a new scrap. The piece that was originally there isn’t entirely gone and the significance that it held for the quilt as a whole has not disappeared, it has just changed shape.
People come through our doors they carry with them a lifetime of stories and they have all played a role in somebody’s life whether it was as a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, sibling or friend. The people who work here carry with them their own knowledge and their own hopes in how they want to care for the people that call this place home as well as the families that bring them here. We are all a part of something bigger whether we want to see it or not, whether we are the families of the residents, the staff or the resident’s themselves. In the end when all is said and done there are some pretty remarkable things that happen within these doors and there are some exceptional people who touch our lives and we are all affected when there is a loss and our quilt has to be patched once again.
I am honoured to speak on behalf of all the staff who have shared their stories of these 10 unique people who called Fenelon Court home. Jessie’s Piece by Robert Brault
The world’s a jigsaw, once I thought,
With each of us a piece to fit,
A predetermined Grand DesignAnd each of us a part of it.
I thought that God must surely have A blueprint of His final goal
,And all who come into this lifeAre meant to play some fated role.
One day, upon a village square,I happened by a tiny shop.
What random step had led me there?
What in the window made me stop?
It was a quilt, a crazy quilt,
Each piece a brightly-colored patch,
A joyful, glowing work of art
From scraps you’d think would never match.
I looked upon the quilt in awe
To think a thing so oddly fine
Was stitched from fragments never made
To fit to anyone’s design.
I wondered then if God might wish
That in this way His world be built,
Each life a motley-colored scrap,
And He the weaver of the quilt.
I looked upon the quilt and saw
A patch that seemed but sheer caprice,
So whimsical it made me smile.
I knew it was my Jessie's piece.
