Ralph's Tomato Card

During the summer before my step father, Ralph, passed away he grew the best tomatoes I've ever eaten, really. They were not necessarily perfectly formed or evenly colored, but they had taste beyond any I'd had before. I literally ate them as I would an apple, just biting into them. So when he became ill and was hospitalized, I decided to make a tomato card from a fabric composition. You can see the progression in the pictures--the photo of one of his tomatoes, the last of a bunch he gave me so rather blemished, as the basis for my design; the layout of the fabric composition; and the final card. My mother showed and read the card to him as he was dying, and he was able to acknowledge that he received the message. He died the next day; I'm glad that I had chosen to FedEx the card.