By Ellen Rolfes
The first full-time director of the Women's Foundation, Ellen Rolfes is now retired and volunteers with BRIDGES and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, "stitching" new patches into our community fabric to create a better Memphis.

Mounted boldly over a sofa in my home is an antique patchwork story quilt. It reminds me of my lifea metaphor of strips in living color, held together with gentle feather stitching done by women's hands. Some of the fabric is in exotic shades of fuchsia and purple velvet, yellow calico, persimmon satin and vibrant red silk. Other pieces are dull and faded into oblivion.

The pieces that speak the most to me are torn to shreds with nothing to show but a few threads of fading color clinging to scrunched-up cotton batting. Those patches are the strongest though, as they have lived the most for sure. They were almost taken out by life's unpredictability, but an invisible force kept them joined to the larger pattern, not letting go for anything. A full life is just that waylittle patches of good, bad and even the ugly all stitched together to make a completed pattern. Master quilters know just how to unravel and re-stitch all pieces into a seamless connection, creating a colorful mosaic that is used for warmth and comfort. Life is a brilliant design.

As I recall my twists and turns, I am certain that I have had to unravel and re-stitch life more than most. It is through those times of laying out the pieces of my life, figuring out how they complement one another, that the dull moments make the bright ones even more visible by contrast. It is there when looking at the whole that the ugly torn fragments suddenly reveal their profound meaning. Through survival and determination, these shreds were intentionally stitched into the framework to tell the depths of life's meaning as only they can. I have grown to know too, that when least expected, exquisite colors can reappear in a single moment, begging to be bound to the whole so their vibrancy can bring forth joy and dance for the dull, tattered ones. I treasure the fragments of my lifeseeing how the pieces appear more beautiful when laid side by side in surreally perfect patterns.

But what I have come to love in my story quilt the most are the tales of the women who helped me unravel and re-stitch my lifethe ones who stood by me and held together my patchwork seams with their caring wisdom when I did not have the strength to make another single stitch. My daughters and sister-friends are the master quilters in my life. When I am laid to rest, cover me with their loving handwork.