A Well Loved Quilt

This excerpt is in conjunction with Mental Health Awareness Month with the theme of "Community".

Community, to me, is like a quilt—both the process of making a quilt and the quilt itself. A quilt is stitched from many pieces of fabric. Yes, you can make one alone, but often it becomes a shared experience. Each piece of fabric may come from someone else and each stitch guided by skills taught to you by another. That is community: helping one another, learning from each other, and weaving those connections into something beautiful—a new craft brought to life, like a quilt.

The variety of fabrics stitched side by side, collected from different spaces in the world, represents the people we welcome into our lives. Some may play bigger roles—like the larger pieces of fabric—but in the end, what matters is how every piece, big or small, is sewn together to make one magnificent quilt. Like a quilt, it isn’t its size that matters, but the care and effort behind it. When the fabric is of good quality—when the people in your life are kind and genuine—the craftsmanship shows through. A good community eases burdens, relieves mental stress, and brings a peace of mind that is hard to find alone.

And then comes the reward of cultivating that community—painstakingly stitching together your quilt. It offers warmth on hard days, when all you want is comfort and rest, just as community supports us in times of need. It also brings pride: the collective effort and beauty of maintaining something so precious nourishes both soul and mind. And like a quilt, community can be shared. When someone else is cold and has none of their own, you can lend them warmth, offering comfort when their mental health falters. Not everyone has someone to lean on, and to share your community in another’s time of need is a privilege.

But what happens when your quilt begins to tear? When parts are burnt or start to grow mould? It’s tempting to hold on—because of the work you put in, the memories it carries, or because from a distance it still looks whole. You tell yourself it’s fine, even as the holes let in cold air or the mould makes you sick. In the same way, when a community turns unhealthy, it’s hard to let go. We remember only the good parts, the warmth it once brought. Yet, just as a mouldy quilt can harm your health, an unhealthy community can steadily wear down your mental well-being. And that’s the sign: it’s time to stitch a new quilt, to begin building a healthier community.

No matter who you are or what you’ve been through, it’s never too late to create a good community. Just as anyone can learn to stitch, you can always start again. The process may be difficult, full of trial and error. You may feel you’ll never succeed. But once your quilt is whole, and you care for it well, the result will be extraordinary—an exquisite community stitched together with love, resilience, and hope.