One Stitch At A Time

I held the fabric between my fingers, caressed the past with memories of prom dresses, blouses worn and doll clothes played with eons ago. Marveled at the exquisite detail, the lace centers, the hand-stitching and even the faded corners on a few pieces. I made her a promise all those years ago, and now, like a golden burst of sun after days of gray rain, I knew the promise never truly forgot me

It was September, 1990, the year I turned thirty-six, the year my heart, it tore in a thousand tiny pieces. My mother, she lay in a hospital bed at Kaiser, back when death was treated with sterile crisp sheets and nightly corridor noise. Before hospice care understood death to be a prayer, a sacred hymn for the family to sing together. Sadness and death co-joined until the next life.

I read to her from Trinity, our book group selection, and even though I feared we wouldn't finish the novel, I read anyway, keeping her company, loving her imperfectly, afraid to let her go. My mother sewed quilts for all the girls in the family, and when she took sick she had one in progress, this for my own eleven-year-old daughter. It rested next to her bed in a plastic laundry basket, a stack of assorted material, batting and lace. During her stay in the hospital, before she died, she asked me to please finish this quilt. I assured her I would, even given my aversion to sewing I said yes. I cannot let you go, but your quilt will stay. We never read to the end of Trinity.

A promise is a bridge between your heart and mine, I''ll carry your wish forever, and meet you on the other side.

I stowed the laundry basket in a closet, all the fabric pieces one on top of another. Brought it out every so often through the years, surveyed that basket of promise, breathing in those pieces of my mom I still had left here on earth. And each time I touched the materials, I noticed another piece of my heart had been stitched up and I never let go of the laundry basket. It survived my husband's penchant for tossing items he believes to be unnecessary. It remained unfinished, invincible, spiritual.  And the commitment I made in 1990 lingered like an incomplete chapter in a story.

Until this past year. I retrieved the basket one more time and I did not put it back in the closet. I can't give up on you! Oh, my beautiful, faithful God, He has unending mercy on those who dislike needle and thread. My sister's dear friend poured herself into my promise, showered this project with His unending grace, even sewing on certain pieces of fabric she had given my mom decades ago. She said she felt my mom's presence while finishing this quilt and this I believe to be right true.

This quilt, this beloved piece of my mom, I touched the edges and I wept happy sad. And when I handed it gently to my daughter, that pool of tears welling up in her own eyes, I saw it then. "I feel her presence here," my daughter said, her eyes damp with awestruck surprise. I did not doubt this to be right true. And that heart that tore so bad back in 1990, that aching pain from loss and grief, the missing, by God's healing touch and outrageous love, it found a measure of peace, one grace-filled heart beat, one stitch at a time.