One Year Ago, In Memory

If you've ever lost someone close to you, you probably remember where you were when you got the news.

I was in Walmart.

And while you may not remember the entire conversation, you remember parts of it.

Unresponsive...ambulance...it doesn't look good...hospital...

My mother passed away a year ago, on Friday, July 3, 2009.

I have been feeling somewhat melancholy and distracted as the one-year mark approached. Things I wouldn't have expected have reminded me -- the smell of the air on my evening walk, the color of the summer sky. Those sensory impressions registered deeply somewhere during the days that followed that one. I walked a lot, praying, thinking, and having silent conversations.

There wasn't much that had been left unsaid, really. That was comforting. Two days before, I had called her and woke her up from a nap. She wasn't awake enough to gather her thoughts for a conversation, and we both laughed about that. It was a short call, and, in the way she ended all our phone conversations, she said, "I love you."

Mom taught me to sew when I was very young. At first, it was hand-sewing simple doll clothes or patches of scraps from her overflowing scrap bin. My first formal lesson was when I was a preteen, and she showed me how to make myself a skirt. Not just any skirt, a plaid skirt. She showed me how to match the plaids. If they weren't matched correctly, she had me unpick the seam and try again. She was a perfectionist and had high expectations of her children, and that wasn't a bad thing. I wanted to learn how to do it right and I wanted to please her, so I did as instructed, even though it was somewhat frustrating and tedious. She set up the secondhand machine she'd bought for me to learn on right next to hers, and we sat sewing side by side. One-on-one time with Mom was a precious commodity in our family of six, and those early days when she was mentoring me are some of my fondest memories. I never took a Home Ec class. Didn't need to. I had the best teacher right at home.

Through the years, Mom churned out innumerable things from her sewing room. She made clothing for herself and the entire family, dolls, costumes, stylized uniforms for the waitresses at the supper club where she worked, quilts, and other handicrafts, including those knitted, crocheted, and cross-stitched.

Between raising us kids, working outside the home, and other endeavors, she somehow made the time. Many nights I fell asleep with the sound of her sewing machine whirring away in the room below my bedroom.

Mom was highly creative, curious, smart as a whip, and not afraid to crack one either. And you'd better watch out because she tended to have a short fuse. She was not afraid of using color, both in her sewing and crafting, as well as her language when it was useful to illustrate her point. Although she was certainly loving and gracious, my mother didn't always give off the warm fuzzies. She was a complex human being, just like the rest of us.

These are the last few quilt tops Mom made. All of them were done in the mid-1990s, before a stroke paralyzed her left arm.




A couple years after her stroke, she gave me permission to have these tops machine quilted by a longarm quilter. I knew it was bittersweet for her not to be able to finish them herself in the way she had intended, but she was glad they got quilted. She then gave a quilt to each of her three granddaughters.

Mom left a legacy in these and other works and deeds, and in sharing her knowledge. For that, and for so much more, I am grateful.