The quilt

[seaboy4hire]

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/why-i-cannot-yet-sew-a-pa_b_9520366.html

Personally, I don't think I would want someone to sew a patch for me. No funeral, no memorials. Cremate me and pour half my ashes on a sunny beach and the other half on the raddest ski slope and be done with it.

 

Hugs,

Greg

[jjkrkwood]

Ooooh NO ovens for me...... reminds me of the holocaust.. A nice padded box in an underground bunker is just fine. It let's all my Fans piss on my grave....

[LADoug1]

The point of the quilt is symbolic of those lost to the AIDS crisis. I wouldn't have a problem with someone adding a square for me if it helps make the point or makes the contributor feel more at peace. Funerals and final dispositions are as much for the living (if not more so) than the dead.

[+ Truereview]

"I cannot bring myself to learn to translate a proper memorial for the life of someone so perfectly loving and good and kind into stitches."

 

Yet, through his prose, it sounds to me like the author has figuratively sewn a patch for his friend on a virtual quilt.

I agree with @LADoug1, no matter how we want to be dispositioned after we move on, how we are remembered is for the living. Whether my memory is buried 9 feet under or scattered across the Argentinian pampas or the beaches of Punta del Este, i want to be remembered for how I made others feel. I hope my "patch" is stitched into the consciousness of those who remain.

[liubit]

Funeral arrangements are for the living. Like someone told me: "If they don't bury me, the town will stink".

Personally, I don't think I would want someone to sew a patch for me. No funeral, no memorials. Cremate me and pour half my ashes on a sunny beach and the other half on the raddest ski slope and be done with it.

 

I am totally with Greg on this one (and on many others too). Cremate me and do with my ashes as you please, including flushing them down the toilet. I couldn't care less.

[+ Charlie]

One of the most emotional experiences of my life was going to a showing of the quilt for my first time, at an armory in NYC, and encountering patch after patch in memory of men from my past, of whose deaths I was unaware until that moment. Boxes of Kleenex were placed everywhere, and I used plenty of them.

[Nvr2thick4me]

Seeing the quilt and the Vietnam Memorial in Washington were 2 of the most moving times of my life. I mourned for friends at both.

[+ WilliamM]

Seeing the quilt and the Vietnam Memorial in Washington were 2 of the most moving times of my life. I mourned for friends at both.

 

I saw the Vietnam Memorial in Washington late in the day on its first New Years Eve. It was overwhelming to see the flowers, gifts, letters discussing what was going on with the family since the war in Vietnam. I was totally unprepared for my emotional reaction, especially for the few people I know whose names were on the wall.

 

For better or worse, I was much more aware amd prepared the first time I saw the quilt --- something I deeply regret.

[johnjohn]

I visited the Quilt in when it came to Charlotte NC, in 1992 , The week after my 10 year old Nephew passed away away with Meningococcal meningitis, because he had no immune system because of the Aids virus he received thru the Blood factor <he was a hemophiliac-Free Bleeder> that the US gov.,and Drug companies conspired to let the drug companies sell contaminated blood products, even after they knew they were contaminated GREED , Greed. . It was a somber experience seeing the Quilt , We never made Treys panel.

Oh by the way when the USA finally banned the sale of the Contaminated blood and blood products in the USA< the drug companies were allowed to see them to other Countries like Costa Rica. More GREED