Cement Girl

I've probably said this somewhere before, but my grandma is like my second mother. She is 85 right now, and up until September of 2002 she lived with my family. For twelve years (from the time i was 7) i came home to find my grandma there. My parents both worked full time, and it was such a great experience for me. I'd come home and watch matlock and hawaii five-o with my grandma. She'd take me to the library and take me to fabric stores. So much of her craftiness and love for reading has rubbed off on me.

Yesterday my grandma wanted my parents and I to come over and sort through some of her boxes of fabric. She had maybe 5 of those big rectange plastic boxes of fabric under her bed. She wanted me and my mom to take what we wanted, and then we are going to take the rest to mexico when we go in June.

It was a pretty emotional afternoon for me, though I didn't show it all that much. My grandmother grew up in a seamstress's household- it's what my great-grandmother did as a side job to support the family. My grandma has always kept herself busy sewing and crafting things. But yesterday she had us come over and clean a lot of it out, saying "my eyes just don't work like they used to, i can't see all the small stuff, i can't do this any more."

So my mom and i took a pile of material. One piece was blue and white gingham. My mom pointed to it and said "that's your's, from your picture" and i immediately said "no way!" the piece of fabric is 19 years old. I have a wonderful studio picture of me in that blue and white gingham dress as a 2 or 3 year old, and my grandma saved it this whole time. Of course I kept that piece of material for sentimental reasons.

But the thing that got me the most was a piece of material my grandma handed me. "oh, this is your's" she said. I looked at it and thought "uhh no it's not, i never started a project like that". She continued "This was going to be for your first baby, but i just can't do it anymore". It was a small blanket size of material that is printed to LOOK like a quilt. She was going to quilt it and soft fuzzy yellow stuff together and make a baby blanket for my first child. She has done that with all of my cousins, and for my brother... and it really saddens me that she can't do that for me. of course I took it, and will have to finish it sometime.

Also, i've expressed interest in quilting this summer, and my grandma handed me over this huge resource book about quilts, "I won't be using this, you can have it". My other project i want to complete this summer is to interview my grandma and record her personal history. She was born in 1918, grew up during the depression, traveled west as a child, got married in 1937, raised three daughters through World War II, the 50s and the 60s. Went to college, worked as a secretary and supported her husbad through many moves and difficulties while he was a pastor.

It's really, really hard to deal with the fact that my grandma is getting so much older. Her husband died before I was born, so I never knew that grandpa, and my grandparents on the other side of the family have never really been involved in my life. I don't know why I shared all this here, it's just laying pretty heavily on me today