Mom

This week, I lost the person who taught me to love fiber, food and flowers.  My mom, Joyce Hoffman, passed away Monday, after a long battle with cancer.  She is the one responsible for my room full of looms, the other room full of fabric, and my never-ending curiosity about food and its possibilities.  She gave me my first garden plot, a shaded square by the carport, when I was five, and she helped me plan another garden that nestled in between the chimney and kitchen when I was nine.  I am who this person helped make me, both because of who she wanted me to be, as well as who I didn't want to be.
  As I sat by her bedside for the last three months, I knitted sweaters and socks, fumbled with embroidery and kept her t.v. humming with programs on architecture and DIY, things we neither are good at but both love to think about.  
  I hope she's where she imagines the afterlife to be, hanging out with people she's missed, walking with our childhood dogs, a world without pain.  This picture is one LouAnn posted on Loomy Tunes this week, and it perfectly captures Mom's joy when weaving, with such a lovely group as the Tuesday Weavers.  This is how I'd like to remember her, with that smile.