Family, Stitches

Before I hit it out of town,
I stopped in for a light lunch at the retirement home.

Upon entering this room, I promptly burst into tears--suddenly, vividly, there right in front of me was the memory of one of the last times I ate lunch here while my grandfather was still alive.  It was the day I realized he was really going to die, the day I buried my face in his neck, and cried.

I cried then [and I cry now] because that man meant the world to me; I cry because his imprint is firmly on my heart.  And as we three sat at this table without him, our eyes were watery as we remembered: We miss him.

We miss him because he was ours.  He stitched us, and he is stitched into us.  And so we remember him, and so we remember to sit together, we three.  Because we're stitched together too, these women who raised me, who knew me before I knew myself.  We're a part of something bigger than ourselves, and we cannot be separated from it, even if we were to try.

And this reflection is fitting, because a while ago I had asked my grandmother to make me a baby blanket, 

which she gave me when I arrived for lunch. 

I asked because I realized that if ever I have the privilege to welcome children into my home, I want them to have a stitch from this woman who knew me first.

Whether those children be biologically attached to her or grafted into our line, I want them to have something to hold, to say: We belong, to this thing bigger than ourselves, tangible evidence that the stitching is a part of who they are, and that they cannot be separated from it without the whole thing falling apart.

For now, I will add it to the evidence that I hold,

reminding me that to be stitched in to something 

is to be made complex, beautiful, whole.