Judy Elsley
It took a long time to believe in my own healing. The first quilt shows that I still had little confidence in my recovery: I used other people’s words rather than my own. However, it was an important first step.
Healing Quote Quilt
“Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.”
Louise Hay
“Healing may not be so much about getting better as about letting go of everything that isn’t you – all of the expectations, all of the beliefs – and becoming who you are.” Rachel Naomi Remen
’ll know I’m healed When . . .
Finally, I was ready to say what healing meant for me, and this quilt explores what the new healthy me would look like. Some markers signal a return to what I could do before, like working and exercise, and others are reaching to a new life after breast cancer. For example:
Healing means I will have understood and learned the lessons this time of illness brings me. The lessons I took from the Hodgkins in my twenties changed my attitude, my life, everything. I’m not expecting such a sea change this time; that was a once in a lifetime Lesson in Living. But there’ll be something significant that will carry me into old age and death. When I’m going through the difficult experience, I can’t see what possible good can come of it, but it gradually emerges, something to bring more reverence to life. As Ram Dass says, “Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to God.”
