100 Good Wishes Quilt

Originally written June 16, 2006

Okay... we know we promised no updates until July-ish, but we ran across the article below that published in today's Chicago Tribune that we just could not resist.

This article is following Kelly Haramis (Chicago Tribune reporter) that is adopting her child from China. Typically, it's a weekly article in the Q section of the Sunday Chicago Tribune; and, of course, we are addicted to her story as it well represents ours.

But this Sunday's just touched us more than most. Apparently, "in some sections of China, it is good luck to make a 100 Good Wishes Quilt for a new baby." So, this is our latest mission. We want you, our family and friends, to provide us with a 7" x 7" piece of fabric. It can be the design of your choice. We also want you to provide a "wish" for our daughter. It can be anything you want it to be (suggestions are in the article below). Just please make sure you attach a piece of the fabric you purchased to the wish, so our daughter will know who it came from.

You can purchase one for your whole family; you can purchase one for each member of your family... it just depends on what you want to do. We will be working toward a goal of 100.

We would like to have all of the fabric squares to us no later than the end of Fall 2006 so that we can have a quilter assemble the squares.

Love... us

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QUALITIES OF LIFE
Warm wishes bundled up with a baby quilt
By Kelly Haramis
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 4, 2006

My daughter may still be in China, but she has 100 good wishes waiting for her in a flowery fabric-covered scrapbook.

Perhaps even a few more than 100, as at least two more of my friends have promised to participate in the Good Wishes Quilt that I will soon have made for her. In some sections of China, it is good luck to make a 100 Good Wishes Quilt for a new baby, and the practice has caught on with many adoptive families.

In November, I wrote that I had 57 wishes and fabric squares. Since October, I swapped fabric twice with parents-to-be from the September 2005 DTC (dossier to China) group on yahoo.com, and I have also received fabric from relatives, friends and co-workers.

For those unfamiliar with the process, 100 people send a piece of 7-by-7-inch fabric (a "quilt square") and a separate wish for a baby with a small swatch of the same fabric.

It has been exciting to receive the different pieces of fabric (from Mardi Gras masks from a fellow parent-to-be in Louisiana to cowboys from a family in Texas).

One of my co-workers gave me fabric that her mom used to make her quilt when she was a baby. And the scrapbook showcases a fantastically colorful array of wishes: Some are handwritten poetry, others are biblical, some literary. There are Chinese proverbs and even an excerpt from "Cinderella."

I can't wait to share these wishes with my daughter and hope the quilt and book will stay with her through her life.

Still, there's one good wish that is missing, one that I wish, more than any other, that I could give my daughter: a wish from my mother.

Last week marked a year since my mother's funeral. It was an unexpected loss--she was fatally struck in a crosswalk (my mom had the right of way) by a man driving a truck.

I think about my mom every day--about how excited she was to once again become a grandmother.

I know I'm not alone in becoming a mother without my mother.

The subject of Hope Edelman's new book, "Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become" (which is on my "to-read" list), is proof.

Still, I wonder what my mom's wish for my daughter would have been. I think she would have wished for my daughter to be blessed with self-confidence, respect for herself and others, and a strong desire for education.

Why? Because those are the qualities she instilled so strongly in me.

Without a wish from my mom, my sister copied the wish that my mom gave my niece, who was adopted from China in February 2004. My mom wrote:

"Always see the beauty in all that surrounds you, mornings, sunshine, blue skies, soft rain, moonlight, stars, promising spring days, long hazy summer days, cool crisp fall days, quiet snowy days, flowers, trees and meadows.

"Remember to smile and always find the cup half full because happiness comes from within."

Well said, Mom.

So what about my wish to my daughter? I'm still working on it. Besides I have a little more time to ponder--the wait is getting longer.

Yet even now, with the words still unformed, I know my wish will have something to do with a lifetime of eating hot fudge sundaes, flying kites and listening to stories about her late grandmother.

I hope my daughter will always be able to look at her scrapbook, feel the Good Wishes Quilt soft against her skin and, like me, know the same unconditional, never-ending love from her mother.

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Kelly is writing periodic updates for Q as she waits to meet her daughter from China. For Kelly's past adoption updates, please see chicagotribune.com/adoption.

kharamis@tribune.com