The Other "A" Quilt

When I was a child, I seethed with jealousy about any advantage, real or imagined, that my sister had over me. Her long, straight blond hair mocked my poufy Dorothy Hamill cut. She was good at sports and socializing, when all I liked to do was read and clean closets. When it came to gifts, money, and my parents' attention, I spent a lot of time trying to make sure things were fair.

Each year the 13 cousins in the family would draw a name to exchange one "Cousin Gift." It was the highlight of Christmas, with gifts coming to Virginia from our cousins in Texas, Oregon, and Kenya. One year my cousin Emily drew my sister's name, and in mid-December it arrived-- a handmade quilt, each square depicting something that began with the letter "E"-- my sister's first initial. I marveled at my Aunt Bonnie's creativity and skill. I particularly enjoyed stroking the flocked fabric on the fuzzy EGG square.

Oh, how I loved that quilt!

I can't remember whether I griped about my lack of an "A for Anna" quilt, but I'm pretty sure I did, because one day my mother, who didn't like to sew at all, presented me with a quilt of my own. It didn't have the alphabet squares, or cute pictures appliqued on it, just a big A at the top made out of fabric to match the colorful bedroom Mom had created for my sister and me. I love how she didn't feel compelled to make me an exact replica of my sister's quilt. I wanted and A, so she gave me an A, darn it.

My mom loved me, complaints, drama, and all. She never made me feel like a pain in the neck, although I know I was sometimes, acting like a little martyr and a know-it-all. I love the quilt she made, and it has traveled with me from house to house over the 28 years since she has been gone. I'm glad I can still remember feeling loved by her, regardless of how I was acting. I hope my kids will one day be able to think back on undeserved, unexpected gifts I've given them, whether they are something physical like the quilt, or just a glimmer of grace on a really hard day. Today, June 27th,  would have been my mom's 75th birthday. Happy Birthday in Heaven, Mom.

And now, on to why this memory came up for me today. Aunt Bonnie, nearly 40 years after making that E quilt for my sister, made Andrew an amazing "A" Quilt. It is a treasure! You should see the tiny whisk made out of thread that goes with APRON, or the detail on the ARTICHOKE! ARROWS? AIRPLANE? ACORNS? AMERICA? Simply adorable. Here's a sample:

I can tell he's going to love it, too.

The Things we Keep

I helped my friend Deborah move last week. We quickly transitioned from the stage of lovingly holding treasures and thinking about the memories they evoked, to wanting to torch the whole house, crushed by the sheer volume of accumulated stuff.

I felt those same sensations when my family moved two years ago. On the final exhausted, emotional morning, my carport was full of piles that hadn't made the first, second, or third purges, but simply could NOT come to the new house with us in the end.

Yet today, I still have too much stuff.

Both my friend's life of late and mine are examples of what we already knew-- the words painted on the wall at my old house-- "The best things in life aren't things." 

We get it.

Yet still, we do have THINGS, which is never more clear than when we must move them from one place to another.

I wanted to help Deborah more than I did, because choosing what to keep and what to donate is extremely personal. The humblest item could be full of meaning, while the most expensive isn't.

For example, one of my family's treasures is a big brown plastic mixing bowl with a handle and a spout.  It used to have a buddy, a slightly smaller orange counterpart, until Shadow chewed it up a few years ago.

These bowls have always reminded me of my childhood, a time when I felt nurtured and safe. I remember my dad sitting in his brown and orange rocking chair in his pj's, chowing down on multiple scoops of ice cream from the orange bowl, while wielding an enormous spoon.

That orange bowl took me right back to the 70's. To unsupervised kids making ice cream floats in tall glasses, always adding extra Coke as we drank them down. To roaming the neighborhood. To four square in the driveway and kick ball in the street. To bikes with banana seats, jaunts to 7-11, and the hot walk to the pool in bare feet. To figuring out how to navigate the culture of growing up.

The big brown bowl reminds me of popcorn, and watching movies with my mom and a string of friends and boyfriends on our plaid couch in the early 80's. To a nascent social life, still in the security of my home. To sleepovers, siblings, first kisses, and Saturday Night Live.

Today, when Margaret makes popcorn for one of our Survivor marathons, she always reaches for the brown bowl. She knows it's impossible to pop every kernel, that the good pieces always run out too soon, and that even though we pass the bowl back and forth between three people now, not four, it represents both her past and her present. I have a feeling that as long as the dogs never get a hold of the bowl, it will end up in her home when she is an adult.

To most eyes, the bowl is insignificant and even ugly. It does not give me the same thrill of promise and orderliness and beauty I get when I browse the matching housewares in a Target aisle.

But to my eyes, the big brown bowl means family.

What is something that you keep that would not mean anything to outside eyes?

Speak My Name

On Wednesdays Mom and I delivered Meals on Wheels around town. Since I was the youngest of three kids born in four years, my hobbies consisted of running errands and going to the dry cleaners rather than taking music or art classes. I still kind of like errands. One of our last stops was at Leighton White’s house. He lived alone in raised brick rambler with a large, meticulously kept green yard. The peacock blue carpet in his living room was vacuumed with precision, lines all going the same direction, and not a speck of dust settled on the few figurines that sat on his shelves.

He could have been 60 or 40 or even 35, because I was only a little girl, and to me old was old. Most of our deliveries were quick, but the stop at Leighton’s house took a little longer because he’d want to chat a while. My mom understood that with some of our clients, the visiting was more important than the food we delivered. Each week Leighton, a developmentally delayed adult, would talk about his late mother. “Did you ever know a Miriam White?” he would ask us. We told him we hadn’t. He told us blue was her favorite color, “Like the blue in this rug.” She loved the tomatoes he grew in the yard. He still kept the grass neat the way she liked.

I wondered why he repeated himself so much. “Did his mom just die?” I asked my mother. “No, she’s been gone for many years” she replied. Our brief visits became a way for Leighton to keep his mother’s memory alive, just as his orderly way of living was his way of showing her, if she could still see him, that he remembered the way she had raised him to live. It could be that raising Leighton had been one of the greatest worries of her life. Or her greatest joy. Probably both. She may have fretted, “What will happen to him I die?” But every day Leighton was getting up, putting on his crisp navy blue farmer’s work shirt and pants and continuing to live, despite missing her terribly.

In speaking her name aloud  into the silence of his empty house, and  to a housewife and a young girl who stopped by, Leighton was not only able to celebrate who she was, but also who HE was in relation to her. He was still Miriam White’s son. That was important.

You may know me as Anna the blogger, the sister, the friend, but when you  stop me in the grocery store to talk about Jack, or when you use his name in a comment,  it helps me to still be “Jack’s mom.” Thank you.