Category: General

On Saturday, December 10, RSE had its annual Christ-in-Mass celebration which I streamed instead of driving up to Yelm. Ramtha gave a beautiful teaching. He told us the story of St. Nicholas, who lived several hundred years ago in Austria and worked  all year to make toys for the children. Ram told us he would send us runners.

Sunday morning, I went to visit my niece who is with her daughter at Dornbecker Children’s Hospital (for very ill children in Portland)…where they have been for 9 weeks now.  I drove up to the turnaround, right next to the brightly decorated Christ-in-Mass tree, and waited for my niece to come down, as we had agreed.  Another car was already in the same turnaround and as I sat there, a lady got out and proceeded to unload white plastic bags with red ties (you’ve seen the ones I mean). 

The bags were stuffed with what appeared to be clothing and I wonder if they were dropping off these off and then going to leave.  Many bags filled the sidewalk.  But the lady went into Dornbecker and came out with a big cart and proceeded to fill it up with the bags…way above the top…and started pushing it to the entrance.  As she did, it tilted over and some of the bags fell out, right in front of me, so that I could see the bags were stuffed with colorful quilts.  About this time, another lady got out of the car and stood by the back bumper.  She was older, rather frail, but she was watching the quilts, not taking her eyes off them, as the basket got righted and they made their way into the hospital.

I had been contemplating “what have I done to help”…and was coming up very short…but then, the quilts spilled over onto the sidewalk in front of me and I thought, gee, maybe I could learn to make a quilt…(as an aside, my sister has a fabric and quilt store in Alaska so I’m familiar).  I decided, that when the lady came out from the hospital, I’d get out of my car and ask what group were they associated with because I thought maybe I could contribute too.

I went up to the older frail lady by the back of the car and asked her what group she was with to have so many quilts to bring to the hospital for the children.  She looked up me, with the most beautiful smile on her face and twinkles in her eyes, and said….”we don’t belong to any group”.  Just at that moment, as I was processing this information, the other younger lady came up.  She said to me….”this is Mattie, she’s 90 years old and made these quilts”.  I looked back at this beautiful, sweet lady and said “you’re an angel”….tears came into my eyes.  Remembering the story Ram told us about the man in Austria, I asked her if she had worked on them all year long    She answered,” yes, and I made 99 quilts this year” (with a note of regret) which confused me.  The younger lady turned to me and said, “Mattie made twice that many the year before”.  I know they could see the tears in my eyes and all I could say to Mattie was….”I’m so humbled by your generosity”.   Mattie, looked up at me with a smile…held out her lovely shaky hands, looked at them and said…”and I’ll make that many and more next year, Lord willing”.  I was nearly speechless, but managed to say to her, “thank you for showing me the gift of giving”…and went back to my car.  They got back into their car and drove away….(was it a sleigh?).

About then, my niece phoned me and asked that I come up instead.  As I waited for her in the lobby, I saw the quilts were still there and I went over to get a closer look.  The fabric design had little animals, toys, bright colors, and had extra stuffing to make them very soft.  They had all been hand-made, with little hand-tied yarn in the squares.  So much work and love in those quilts. 

I had received Ram’s runner on the true meaning of Christ-in-Mass and the spirit of giving.  

This experience is now my truth...like a gift that I can carry where ever I go....as I search for the ways and moments I also can help...and carry forward the spirit of St Nick and Santa.

Sue