#LiftWhileFeelingHeavy
Welcome to 19 Quilts for Natalie! This nonprofit is to honor our sweet daughter Natalie Paige Holt, by serving and lifting others by making quilts of comfort for grieving mothers, and making chemo quilts for The Huntsman Cancer Hospital, and Shriners Childrens Hospital. As you scroll through the website, you will find 6 different pages. Depending if you are on a computer or a mobile device, the menu will look different. On a computer, there are tabs at the very top of the page that you can click on. If you are on a mobile device, the menu bar will be on the top right hand corner. These first 2 sections are about how I started quilting and WHY, and a little bit about Natalie. In order to see all the beautiful quilts, you will need to open the pages "Chemo Quilts", or "Grieving Mother Quilts", where you will also find the beautiful tributes from some of our grieving parents. To see our current projects, go to our Instagram or Facebook page. We hope you enjoy seeing the beautiful quilts. We are here to comfort others, and to honor our daughter, Natalie Paige Holt. All quilts are made with donations. We need donations to continue making quilts, to lift others. Will you lift with us?
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In 2013 I was working full time as an Oncology Nurse at The Huntsman Cancer Hospital. I had also just been accepted into the Masters program at the University of Utah College of Nursing. I had 6 children living near or with me and my husband Jim, in Park City, Utah. My husbands work suddenly took him to St George Utah, 320 miles south, to work on a construction project with some partners he used to work with in Deer Valley. I prayed about moving from a town I lived in for 25 years, I prayed about leaving my kids, I prayed about quitting my job, prayed about giving up my dream of getting my masters degree to work as a Nurse Practitioner. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made. I had my job that I loved, my whole family, and school classes to start soon, and I wasn’t interested in giving it all up and moving to the desert, without my kids. Natalie was my youngest and wasn’t quite old enough to live on her own and she wasn’t interested in moving either. We all prayed about it, and eventually we made the choice as a family to support my husband Jim.
Natalie came with us and struggled living so far away from her friends and family. I struggled to feel this is where I was really supposed to be. I did get a job offer while I was in St George with some Oncology doctors I used to work with in Salt Lake, but didn’t feel it was the right thing to do at the time, so I passed it up. What to do....
In the mean time, early in 2014, my father Hans and step mother Iris, who live in Germany, came to visit us in St George and my step mother taught me how to piece quilt, and I loved it!! That kept me busy, learning techniques and trying different patterns. I liked it so much, that I bought a very nice Bernina sewing machine the last day of June. Two days later, on July 2nd 2014, Natalie and I took a road trip “back home” to visit family and to celebrate my moms 85th Birthday. There were lots of family there who had traveled far to celebrate my mom. We ended up spending the entire week in Salt Lake and Natalie got to spend every day with her siblings she missed and adored!!! She saw most of her old friends and lots of family. We ate at all our favorite restaurants and did all our favorite things when we came to town. It was her GRAND FAREWELL.
On our way home, we left town a little too late, having to drive home in the dark. When we were 30 miles north of St George (at mile marker 36.5), there was a car in front of us that suddenly swerved and my daughter swerved to get away from that car, then we suddenly saw why that car had swerved. There was a deer in the road standing, staring right at us. She swerved to miss the deer and then she over corrected and we ended up swerving again, hitting the metal cable barrier in the medium which catapulted our car, tail over head to the north bound lanes and then we rolled off the highway, down an embankment. She was killed instantly. Our lives were forever changed.
I ended up with some injuries from the crash and PTSD from the trauma from the horrible things that happened to my baby, next to me in the car. I put my sewing machine and all my fabric away in boxes. I just couldn’t do anything but grieve deeply. I couldn’t go back to work, I was in so much pain. 💔 I was a grieving mother mess. I saw her family suffering, I saw her friends suffering. I wondered what I could do to help comfort them. I decided to start making quilts for her family and friends. I made a goal of making 19 quilts, (since she was 19 when she passed away). When I made 19, I just couldn’t stop. As I made a list of her friends, 19 just wasn’t enough!!! She loved way MORE than 19 people!!! There was no limit to how she loved or how she treated people. There is a reason her headstone says “Everyones Best Friend!”, because she was!!! So I just kept sewing. Names would come to me, some who I didn’t even know. I would have to text her friends “who is this person...” and they would tell me “actually she spent a day with that person that last week ...”. people I didn’t even know, but I made them quilts. If they were important to Natalie, they got a quilt. Her boyfriend who kept calling her phone that horrible night, calling and calling her, asking where she was, and why didn’t she show up...he got a quilt 💔. Her friend who had text her when we were leaving town “you’re leaving late, are you going to be ok?”, he got a quilt. Her favorite High School teacher, Mr Brown got a quilt, her siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, her favorite missionaries that served in our home, who became like brothers to her, (one she dated), all got a quilt. Several of her best friends got quilts. I ended up making almost 100 quilts of comfort.
The most touching part of it was we used her death insurance money to pay for it all. Those quilts were all from NATALIE. 💜
When I finished making her family and friends quilts I prayed “what do I do now?” I was still dealing with some trauma issues and was getting EMDR therapy for the PTSD and still didn’t feel confident to go back to work, so my husband suggested I start a nonprofit, and I started making quilts for OTHER grieving mothers. We also make and donate chemo quilts twice a year, on Natalie’s birthday in February and her angel anniversary in July, to The Huntsman Cancer Hospital and Shriners Children’s Hospital.
Service has helped me heal. Lifting others, has lifted me. The best medicine for despair is service.
I lift while feeling heavy. Will you lift with me?
Donations
Registered 501c3 Nonprofit Corporation
I CAN'T DO THIS WITHOUT YOUR SUPPORT!
#WillYouLiftWithMe?
You can help! Follow us on social media and tell your friends about 19 Quilts for Natalie. We rely on cash donations, which are used to purchase fabric, batting, thread, rotary cutter blades, cutting mats (I go through 2 a year!), sympathy cards that we send with the grieving mother quilts, shipping supplies, boxes, tape, cost of shipping quilts to grieving mothers.
Each grieving mothers quilt, from start to finish costs approximately $300 and each chemo quilt costs an additional $100, just for the quilting.
WE ALSO NEED:
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Fabric donations
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Finished Quilt Top donations
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Volunteers help to sew, make quilt tops, finish quilts, piece backings for quilts, and make binding for the quilts.
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Volunteers to cut fabric for us.
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Finished quilts
- Chemo quilts for The Huntsman Cancer Hospital are to be 48x60.
- Quilts for Shriners Children’s Hospital can be any size between infant and twin.
Natalie Paige Holt
#ForTheLoveOfNatalie
Natalie Paige Holt was born February 27, 1995. She was a beautiful gift from heaven, sent to me and her siblings to help us through a very difficult time in our lives. In the fall of 1994, when I was 5 months pregnant with Natalie, I became aware I would soon be a single mother. It was a very difficult time for me and my children, but we had this sweet little new baby to help make life wonderful, to distract us from the heartache.💔
Our mother~daughter bond started immediately. She started life on this earth with me, all alone in the birthing room. God handed me this sweet Angel. That became the start of a life full of special bonds and precious memories, not just with me, but her siblings too.
I was a Single mom with 6 kids, (4 under the age of five) and life was hard! She became our joy, our laughter, our reason to love, and to feel loved, when we all felt so unlovable.
Natalie slept with me as soon as she was born, until I got remarried, almost 5 years later, and then she still tried sneaking in our room and sleeping on the floor of our bedroom,( that’s my mommy, and I’m pretty sure that’s my spot on the bed next to her!) 😂 and then still throughout her growing up, tried sleeping with me every chance she had. We would sit in bed every night talking or watching tv and sometimes she fell asleep in my bed (which irritated my husband). 😂 It was such a routine for her to be on that left side of my bed, that those early days of missing her, I would lay on my left side with my arm stretched out, crying, hoping to feel her, or get a glimpse of her silhouette laying next to me. 😭😭😭
She was my best friend, my sidekick, my laughter, my joy, she went everywhere with me. We tried a preschool once, while I took some college classes, but she cried every time I left her. When I picked her up she said they wouldn’t allow her to “twist her hair” Lol. 💁🏼♀️ She loved to twist her hair, and went on to twist her hair the rest of her life. ☺️
I have 6 kids, but Natalie always wanted to sit by me in church. That was her spot. (She was a spoiled mommas girl). She was my shopping buddy while her siblings were in school. She helped me do all the Christmas shopping and every year knew who was getting what (and wasn’t very good at keeping secrets) 😂. She grew up loving to cook and bake with me. I taught her how to ski and golf.
As a family, we loved to go boating and snowmobiling, seeing all the new movies, eating at all our favorite restaurants. We took many vacations to St George, Las Vegas, Disneyland, Hawaii, Cancun, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, across America on the pioneer trail, all the way to New York and back. We just loved doing everything as a family. We wanted to create memories and we took lots of pictures!
She was my Temple buddy. On her 12th birthday I took her to the temple for the first time, and she made the goal to go to every temple in Utah. We didn’t quite make every one (never made it to Vernal or Monticello 😂). She had memorized the color themes in EVERY temple. The Draper Temple was her absolute favorite, Salt Lake and Las Vegas were a close 2nd and 3rd. Those were special days for me as a mother, to attend the temple and do family names together!
Her freshman year of high school, she changed high schools, which required us to drive up and down the canyon everyday, and she didn’t have her drivers license yet, so I was able to spend that year making those precious memories driving with her every morning to school and in the afternoon, picking her up, driving with her to school and back, getting bagels at Einstein’s after school. When she got her drivers license, I went back to work at The Huntsman Cancer Hospital, and most days instead of running off with her friends, she would come hang out with me at the hospital. We would have dinners together at the Bistro (they have the best fries BTW). If I had to work Holidays, she would come spend those holidays with me and the patients at the hospital. I’ll always have sweet memories watching fireworks out the west windows in The Huntsman Cancer Hospitals VIP suite on New Years Eve with my baby girl. She loved The Huntsman as much as I did.
I was serving in the young women’s youth group of our church while all 3 of my girls were growing up. I was also camp director 2 years in a row, and they loved helping me. Those 2 years at girls camp, Natalie loved being my pretend “assistant”.
At youth conference she got razzed by some of the other leaders for wanting to hang out with “her mommy” all the time instead of hanging out with the other girls. I thought it was sweet and I’ll treasure those years in Young Women’s with my girls. ❤️❤️💜. I truly was blessed to have those precious moments with her. (Like God knew I would need those extra hugs). 🤗
We had our own language, we could read each other’s minds, we knew what each other was thinking and we could look at each other and say “I KNOW, RIGHT?” And laugh and laugh. I never went a day without getting multiple texts and calls from Natalie.
She lived so large. She gave us so much love. She had the brightest smile, the biggest laugh. She lit up any room she was in. She loved everyone and everyone that knew her, felt her love. She was a big hugger. 🤗
The absolutely hardest thing after she passed away was the SILENCE. The absolute silence. The laughter was gone, her music was gone, her texts were gone, her hugs were gone, her calls “what’s for dinner” were gone. All gone. In an instant, GONE. Her overwhelming presence is so missed.
So many years of struggle, raising my kids, many years doing it “alone”, but after she passed, I felt so blessed that she was mine 💜, that God blessed me with that wonderful girl. She was ours for 19 1/2 years. I felt like the richest person In the world. I had all the memories. I had all the pictures. I had all the love!! I had all the Joy. She was an absolute gift to us all. She helped us through some of the hardest days of our lives.
I have had a beautiful life filled with blessings, and those blessings I call my CHILDREN.
Natalie was truly a blessing to us and the world. I will forever treasure those 19 1/2 years I was blessed with her in my life. She will forever be missed. 💔
My best friend, my soulmate, forever my Cha Cha. 💜
I was alone with Natalie when she was born, when God handed me an Angel. I was alone with Natalie when she died, when God took my Angel back. She is, and will forever be my guardian Angel. 😇
Below is a post I wrote about Natalie on her first birthday after she passed.
Natalie Paige Holt, our Cha Cha, CCB (Cha Cha Butt), or just Nat. Our baby, my best friend. I miss you so much. I've been writing down some things I miss about you and things you loved and thought I would share these with people who might not know you like we do.
You loved Sprite. Harley rides with Jim. Chocolate banana milkshakes. Candy sandwiches (it's a dutch thing). Coldstone, Davanzas, Strawberry Twizzlers, Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. You loved Disnelyland, the Matterhorn was your favorite ride, Pirates of the Caribbean was a close second. At Disney, you and I had a saying "ONE MORE CHURRO?" That would make us laugh (and go get another Churro!). 😂 You always listened to loud music while in the shower. You loved Taylor Swift when you were younger. We loved going to concerts together. We took you to see Kenny Chesney twice (once in Seattle), but Darius Rucker was one of your absolute favorites. You LOVED to read. Game of Thrones was your current obsession, although The Hunger Games and Twilight were in there somewhere. 😂 Hot Rod was your absolute favorite "cult" film. You loved to Bake! You wanted to be a Pastry Chef and own your own Bakery some day. You loved cooking. You made a mean, from scratch, homemade Alfredo Sauce, and making Mama Janet's chocolate marshmallow cookies. You loved wearing your sisters clothes. You played the violin, lacrosse, basketball and soccer when you were younger. You knew how to ski and snowboard. You loved to golf with your mama. You loved chinese white rice with white sugar sprinkled on it. You Loved Easy-Mac, and IHOP. We loved singing in the car together, and long road trips. You loved your Tiffany heart necklace I gave you for Valentine's Day in 2007 and you never took it off. I wear it with mine now, and forever close to my heart. You loved to twist your hair (like me). You loved your sweet golden retriever dog, Lilly, almost as much as me. You loved all things Vintage, which include HIGH RISE mama jeans. 😱 you loved your phone and we learned that was the one thing we could actually ground you from and you hated that 😜. Not a lot of people know you never crawled as a baby. You did this adorable one legged butt scoot. 👶 you had a birthmark the size of a hamster on your back, and when you were 2, you saw it in the mirror and screamed "I have poop on my back". 💩😂 You loved living in flip flops, even in the winter. You loved Zebra pens, Soft serve vanilla ice cream, The Ellen show, Toms, Chicken and Steak. You loved watching Princess Bride, and any Disney princess movie with your mom, and when the Prince kissed the princess at the end, we would yell “It’s a trap!!” And giggle. Cinderella was your favorite. You loved the scriptures, loved talking about the "Last Days". You wanted to serve a mission (I believe you are). ❤️ you loved the underdog, made everyone feel loved, hugged a lot, told lots of people they were your best Friend. You were special to me, special to your siblings, special to your entire family, and so many friends. We all miss your laugh and your beautiful smile. We have faith we will see you again. Families are forever.
Love while you can. ❤️ Take lots of pictures! Make lots of memories! You will never regret one great memory!
