Family

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For as long as I can remember my mother has been a seamstress. Never for money and rarely for herself, she sews for the people she loves.

She sewed beautiful dresses for my sisters and me to wear to church on Easter Sundays. She sewed costumes for Halloween, onsies for our hospital’s Newborn’s in Need program and even a purple cape for my son when he was three just so he could dress up like his hero of the week; Disney’s Darkwing Duck. She endlessly sewed patches on torn up, grass stained jeans. During my ackward pre-teen years she’d take in my pants just so I could shop in the cool “juniors” department at Dayton’s. Even though the clothes were too big, she always made them fit.

Now she quilts. Each baby born into our family gets one. Grandkids, grandnieces, grandnephews, babies of friends that are so close they feel like family, all get a special gift. And when their quilts are worn with child-love she patches them too with scraps of fabric she saves just for that purpose.

My daughter, Anna, died of bacterial meningitis on her twenty-ninth day of life. Her daddy and I had her cremated. I wrapped my little girl in my old baby quilt and sent her up to Heaven. A few months later my mother presented me with a gift. She made me a new baby quilt to replace the one I had given to Anna. Each patch was a tiny square cut from the baby clothes I had bought for my daughter shortly before her birth. Next to my own children, I have never seen anything more beautiful.

My mother creates these masterpieces in the basement of her house. The floor is unfinished concrete. It is always cold and dark. Her work area is stacked from floor to ceiling with fabric, spools of thread and various, odd-shaped quilting tools. She also keeps a portable 5-inch black and white television set on her table for entertainment.

(unfinished)

I’m not sure where to go with this. I’d like to relate her art with her Christian faith. Any suggestions would be welcome.

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