“The Rosebush” was made by a woman whose teenage daughter was raped and murdered. Stunned, and fearing for her own life, she managed to escape Colombia and flee to Ecuador. There too, she lacked the safety needed for grieving and she remained frozen in silence. When she joined the healing circle, she did not speak or make eye contact. She was flattened by depression and cut off from others. She had never spoken about what happened to her daughter, but in the women’s circle managed to stitch the memory into her story cloth. By the end of a few months, she added two bright elements to her textile—a rosebush and a yellow bird.

When asked about the rosebush by her peers in the circle, she said, “That rosebush is my daughter’s soul that goes on blooming.”

“And the yellow bird?”

“It is her voice—I can hear it again.”

With the help of her Common Threads circle, she was finally able to grieve and make her way toward recovery.