Quilted with love: Dying mother has son's quilt made with help from many hands

Sheelagh Callaghan was not the type of person who would ask for help.

So when the Sackville, N.B. resident approached her closest friends about helping her complete a personal project, they knew what it meant.

"That was the first time I think that she kind of went to that place and said, 'I can't do this by myself," said friend Lucy Evans.

"This" was a quilt. Callaghan had made quilts for her two older boys and was planning one for her youngest son, Dante, when she was diagnosed with cancer.

The response to her request, Evans said, for help was immediate and immense.

"Everyone was just waiting to help. You could hear that sigh of relief. That's why even the non-sewers were saying 'You got it, I'm in!" You know, how do you help? How do you help a friend who is dying?"

Sheelagh Callaghan was a speech pathologist. She sewed, she knit, she quilted, she swam, she ran, she skied, she volunteered.

'A joy of living'

She loved connecting with people and connecting people to others.

"She had a joy of living," said her husband, Peter Manchester. "People just wanted to be around her. She was the type of person if you saw at a gathering, you would gravitate towards her. to see who she is and what she's about. She was socially very generous."

Katrina Ouellet was another of Callaghan's closest friends.

"We used to joke that Sheelagh was cheating on us because she had so many friends. But there was a little group of us. Peter would refer to us as the sisterhood and I guess when she wanted the job done, she rallied the sisterhood and knew that we would reach out to all those other friends."

Those other friends included locals. But Callaghan wanted friends and family all over the world to have a hand in it.

'She had the wildest fabric'

"I think at the beginning it was because she didn't think we could handle it," friend Debbie Champagne joked. "She probably thought, 'These girls are going to need some help.' But really I think she knew what she was doing and it worked. She got a lot of people together."

"She had the wildest fabric, not any quilt fabric," said Champagne. "It was from all around the world that she had collected. It was vibrant., it was crazy. It was pieces of clothing that she had saved. … She knew what she wanted.

"So we took all the fabric...and we got to work cutting and we cut strips for hours and hours," said Champagne. "We picked strips and mailed them away to family and friends all around the world..and they sewed them."

Then they mailed the sewn blocks back.

Local people came to Evans's home to pick out strips for their blocks. Those who didn't know how to sew got help from those who did.

'They really would have done anything'

"It was one-stop shopping, one-stop sewing," Evans said.

Peter Manchester wasn't the least bit surprised at the overwhelming response.

"I think if Sheelagh said, 'I think we should build a wall to defend ourselves from New Brunswick and the United States,' they would have made the bricks and started building it. They really would have done anything."

Evans says they took photos and consulted with Sheelagh during every step of the process.

Manchester says it gave her something to focus on, especially when her health deteriorated quickly in her final weeks.
"It gave her something to look forward to. She really wanted to give this to Dante and see it completed. It meant a lot to her."

'It was a total shock'

The memory of receiving the quilt is an emotional one for Dante.

"Dad came in here and said Mom wanted to give me something so I went into her bedroom ... and the quilt was just laid out there on the bed and it was pretty obvious what was happening. It was a total shock and it didn't take long for me to break down, similar to how I am now. It was pretty special.

"I know it meant a lot to her to have it finished. I mean it was the last thing on my mind I hadn't thought of it at all so the fact that behind the scenes she'd been working with all her friends to get it done, it was pretty amazing."

Sheelagh Callaghan died last December, within days of giving the quilt to Dante.

'The gifts Sheelagh gave us'

Lucy Evans and Katrina Ouellet said the quilt project doesn't make the loss of their friend any easier.

But they said it softens the grief they still feel.

"It's a memory," said Katrina. "It becomes part of the memory of Sheelagh, remembering that time where we worked on the quilt, talked about the quilt with her, it's woven, or quilted let's say into our memory of her. I'm comfortable I guess with the gifts Sheelagh gave us and the gift we gave to her. I'm comfortable and that helps, you know?"

Peter Manchester hopes this story helps others.

"People need to come together when they're faced with a situation like this that's essentially just terrible, with the death, the terminal illness of a loved one, a family member, a community member," he said.

"If there's some way they can come together to create something that perhaps binds them and there's a lasting memory of their final days. Grief is so multi-faceted. It at least gives them focus how to deal with it."

For Dante, the quilt will always carry a deeply personal meaning.

"It's just going to be one of those things that I'll always have with me. It will be a reminder of how amazing and loving she was."