Riley (my daughter Megan's little boy) snuggled up on our bed for a nap this weekend - looking precious like all sleeping three year-olds do. He was wrapped up in the quilt made from squares my great-grandmother pieced 75 years go, and my mother sewed into a quilt just a few years ago. She gave it to me one recent Christmas, and I don't think I've ever loved a gift more.
Seeing little Riley cuddled warmly in the handiwork of his great, great, great(!)-grandmother, I thought how this is the secret dream of anyone who's ever spent time making something - that it might somehow bear the love you have for the person you made it for, that it might even continue on doing so into some bright, unknowable future long after you've become a somewhat sketchy remembrance.
The squares were made from flour sacks by Nettie Green Avery who lived about 45 miles from here and wasn't known for her artistic ability as much for her chicken and dumplings. But she had a son who made a living as an artist - one of the five children who survived their shaky childhoods growing up in a tenant-farming family on infertile sand at the turn of the 20th century. And her granddaughter, my mother Sandra Richardson Martin, painted with oils and watercolors (like her Uncle Jay) before turning to quilting. This quilt is their mutual handiwork and now delights this daugter of their tribe and warms the newest generation.
I tell little Riley that it was made by "Gimmie" and by her gimmie - Grandma Nettie. When I think of the things I will be sending off into the future, I think these two things will be among the most precious: a gift from two of the line of meticulous, practical women in my family who have an eye for color and harmony - and this new little boy.
Earlier this year when I was downsizing and decluttering like a maniac, the underlying question was always "what really matters?" This question rears its head again during this busy season of cluttered values - of being tasked with creating beauty, celebrating simplicity, and loading Santa's pack. I haven't solved the Christmas conundrum by any stretch, but I remain ever hopeful that the celebrating will tilt toward what really matters - friends, family, tradition, gratitude, and generosity. Gifts will be a part of it, yes, but I will keep close the dream that some of the gifts of this season will find their way into the future still bearing the love with which they were created and given.
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Some ideas for a simpler season:
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