Cancer quilt
A tribute to motherly love

By Marie Bakken
Reporter staff

 Elise Warfel Ryan knew that she would not live to see her mid-30’s, according to her best friend Valerie.
 “She always knew that she would die at the age of 32. And she did indeed pass away just a few weeks before her 33rd birthday,” Valerie said.
 Elise died from secondary cancer, breast cancer, that ensued from the treatment she received for Hodgkin’s Disease when she was only fifteen.
 The two friends made a pact that Valerie would become the mother figure in the lives of Elise’s three small children upon her death.
 “She was a very dear friend of mine, and she wanted me to be mother to her children after she passed,” Valerie said. The children, Peter and twins Claire and Shannon, were five and four at the time of their mother’s death.
 After Elise’s passing and in due course, Valerie and the children’s father, Chris Ryan, would fall in love and marry, making the mother figure in the children’s lives a real member of the family.
 Valerie has never forgotten how much Elise loved her family and life itself.
 “She lived every one of the days she had to the absolute fullest,” Valerie said of her dear friend. “(Elise) was a CPA who specialized in nonprofit organizations. She was an active and beloved member of our home parish in California.”
 Elise had been very athletic as a youngster, before cancer hit, according to Valerie. She said Elise excelled in swimming, ice-skating, and gymnastics and loved sports, something she passed along to her children.
 “She was creative and handmade the tiles that were used in re-modeling her kitchen and fireplace,” Valerie added.
 Valerie, who moved to Rockdale in February from California via Austin, has since taken an active roll in the fight against cancer since losing the mother of her children and her best friend.
 Valerie has done so by helping with fund-raisers for the American Cancer Society (ACS).
 A major money maker for the ACS that Valerie is involved with takes place May 31, the Austin Cattle Baron’s Ball 2008.
 The Cattle Baron’s Ball will feature many spectacular live and silent auction items but it is the “special auction items” that get the most attention. Those are usually the ones that inspire the hope and healing involved with the ACS and those who lovingly created the items.
 Valerie was involved in creating the Comfort and Hope quilt that will be a featured item at the Ball’s auction.
 “I helped put the quilt together, which was created from blocks donated by many quilters,” Valerie said. “I actually made four of the blocks in the quilt, as well, because they weren’t coming up with enough blocks to pull the project together.”
 The quilters involved were asked to dedicate their blocks to a cancer survivor or victim.
 “My original block is the star composed of ‘awareness ribbons’ of peach and rust on a field of dark green. I dedicated this block to my children’s mother, Elise,” Valerie said.
 She added that it took 70 pieces of fabric to make that one block.
 “That is a true quilter’s block,” she added.
 Valerie said that the dark evergreen background for the block is symbolic for how she felt while doing the quilt and while raising and loving the three now grown children the way Elise wanted her too.
 “Nothing good ever dies,” she said. Just like a evergreen tree doesn’t die.
 As Mother’s Day approaches on Sunday, it is sure that one mother up above looking proudly down upon her friend and now mother of her children with much approval. Not only approving of her mothering, but of her willingness to help find a cure for the disease that took the life of her friend.

marie@rockdalereporter.com