I’ve been bedridden for the past few days because what I thought was a stubborn head cold has become an upper respiratory infection. This malaise has me feeling bad physically and emotionally.

I have deadlines that I fear I won’t make because I’m too weak or in too much pain to get up or focus, and the cocktail of drugs I’m on has me dazed and sleepy. 

Anyway, I’m not here fishing for sympathies (yes I am)–I’m here to tell you a story. 

Sunday, I ventured from my sick bed and set myself up in the living room. The effort to walk the few feet really wiped me out, so I fell asleep with my puppy curled up on my feet. About forty minutes later I woke up feeling kind of good physically but my mind was foggy yet focused on one thing. 

On the back of my couch hangs a quilt–an unremarkable brown, red plaid, green and trimmed in brown courdorouy quilt. 

But my quilt IS remarkable. 

My great-great grandmother made that quilt, and it’s about the only thing I own that I truly cherish. Laying under Mama Callie’s quilt yesterday and inspecting its battle wounds got me thinking about the short story by Alice Walker called “Everyday Use.” My quilt has gnawed corners and disentigrated batting, frayed stitches, and a single missing square. I had noticed popped stitches years ago but didn’t repair them then because I had an image in my mind of me and my children with Mama Callie’s quilt stretched between us and our hands working to maintain this piece of family history in our own quilting bee. Now, though, the quilt shows her age and the effects of our every day use. 

I failed to protect this precious gift that was bestowed upon me several years ago in almost pristine condition. My mind, as foggy as it was, had me grab needle and thread. I couldn’t do much in my very weakened state, but I could push a needle through some old, worn fabric. 

As I stitched, I thought of “Everyday Use” and how these quilts were created to serve a purpose and not to be admired from behind museum glass. My great-great grandmother made this quilt to keep her family warm, and it’s doing its job all these generations later. 

Inevitably, I pricked my finger. And when that happened, my mind flooded with an image of a similar moment many unknown years before.

Stitch

Fingers travel over these squares, these scraps of life shredded and repurposed.

Chatter rises as hands work.

Community and communion.

Regeneration for the generations. 

A hiss and a swear is uttered as crimson dots emerge on the tips of index fingers and thumbs. But the hands never stop.

Life is in these squares of cloth. Ancestral DNA is fused within like the very strands in my being, making this thing alive.

Alone, I sew. 

I hiss and swear, but then I smile, grateful for the opportunity to weave my own blood, my own story into this tapestry as I stitch. 

(c) Daphne Marie