AROUND THE FRAME

FOR THE LOVE OF MAGGIE

I met Maggie Silverman in the summer of 1979. Recently graduated from college and without any decent job prospects, I volunteered for the Win Moses for Mayor Campaign. At HQ I meet Maggie who along with husband Manny were well known for “treading the boards” in local theater productions.

We worked long days together-typing, answering phones, fetching Coneys whatever needed to be done. After the election we found ourselves working for CETA (Comprehensive Employment Training Act) prospecting employers, writing job descriptions, interviewing potential candidates and sharing our lives.

One day Maggie invites me to go to lunch with her and Kathryn who works for the State Employment office. I went to high school with Kathryn’s son and she is interested in meeting me. At lunch, Kathryn asks Maggie, “Don’t you think Lois would get along well with my co-worker Tom?” Maggie agrees and two years and one day from the day we meet, Maggie and Manny are witnesses to my marriage to Tom Eubank. For Maggie and me, it isn’t all about work. Maggie crafts and sews too. Maggie becomes a grandma and cross-stitches designs based on the baby’s names. When I became pregnant, Maggie takes the mound of  Paddington Bear fabric and sews crib accessories and a quilt for Robert.

Click to advertise on this website

Maggie shares with me a family secret.

As a teen and her parents away, she discovers her adoption papers. On the original birth certificate her name is Lois May. Maggie never tells her parents she knows their secret.

Her own children, now grown, are told of her adoption. She wants them to know their grandparent’s health problems would not be passed down.

Fate strikes Maggie a crueler blow. Maggie starts losing motor control and after numerous visits to doctors and specialists, the diagnosis is Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. A certain death sentence, Maggie continues to live her life on her terms.

Maggie phones and invites me over. Maggie takes me to her craft room and asks me to help myself to whatever I’d like. After reassuring me her daughter and other family members have already been given the opportunity I help Maggie shed years of fabric and sewing supplies. Before I leave, Maggie agrees to allow me to make a tracing of her hands and she never asks why.

I last see Maggie a few weeks before she dies. It is very emotional and difficult for both of us. Robbed of her ability to speak, sitting in her special wheelchair she tries to communicate with me on an alphabet board as her mouth forms words she can no longer speak.

I keep the visit short. Our eyes and the touch of my hands on hers convey it all. At her visitation the music from Peter Pan, a character she’s portrayed fills the room. Maggie, you still soar!

Maggie leaves behind four grandchildren. The older two know their grandmother, but Ayden and Lily only three and one year, are much too young to remember their grandma.

Maggie’s various fabrics are cut into turtle shape appliqués. Turtles symbolize wisdom and they don’t get ahead unless they stick their necks out. I use Maggie’s gifts of rotary cutter and cutting board, and think of her. The top is machine-quilted and bound. I want it to be sturdy, for a child to enjoy. Now for the last step I take Maggie’s hand prints and trace them onto aqua fabric. I have twelve-year-old Robert place the quilt over his shoulders so I can pin and then later sew the hands in place. This is Ayden’s special quilt. When he is twelve and on the verge of his teen years he can wrap himself in the quilt and know the hands of his grandmother are on his shoulders and feel her forever presence.

Lily’s quilt features frolicking kittens with Maggie’s hands appliquéd in pink fabric. Now ten, she uses it on her bed and appreciates the special way it connects her to her grandmother.

A month ago from the local Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) calls and informs me I have been “turned in” as a person who will “do good”, become a “jailbird” and raise “bail money” for MDA. I agreed to accept the challenge. I keep thinking of Maggie and how ALS ravaged her body, but not her mind or spirit. For my love of Maggie, I ask friends, colleagues and my faithful Waynedale News readers to assist me in raising my bail which is set at $1600. If you would like to help, see the box for details and I thank you for your generous spirit.

The bailiff will be at the Born Again Quilts Studio (124 W. Wayne St) on Tuesday, May 18 at high noon to drag me through the streets to the “Clink” at Parkview Field where they will take my mug shot.

If you prefer to pay by check make it payable to “MDA” and send it to Lois Eubank at 4101 Hampshire Drive, Fort Wayne, IN 46815.

All donations are tax deductible. Write in the memo line:  “Lois Eubank-#680160.