Gigit

Women In My Life: The Tie That Binds

She is my second child. Not the first, that much is true, but she is my favorite child.

My sampaguita flower. 

Gigit. 

My rainbow. A promise of sunshine after rain.

Her firsts were lasts for me - last crawl, last rock-to-sleep, last cry to hush. 

She was the last lullaby I'd ever sing. 

Endings are generally sad, but she was such a joy that I wanted to preserve  something of hers for the next world and beyond.

Her quilt.

It smelled of her. That one with the chipmunks and their toothy smiles. 

So, what was a mother to do? Grab the threadbare quilt and cut off an image from the least tattered part of it. Should it be that of the mischievous troublemaker Alvin, or Simon the bespectacled intellectual, or chubby Theodore? 

I really wasn't sure which one it was, or if this was actually Chip or Dale. Regardless, it was a delight blanket stitching around his pudgy cheeks, large, glossy eyes, and that ever-present goofy overbite - immortalized, sort of - on a new piece of baby blue fleece. 

That was ages ago.

It is amazing how time barrels along when you're not doing much of anything. The hours are passing so quickly that I sometimes forget what day it is because days are all the same without school or schedule.

I hang on. I wait.

No more tooth fairy. No fighting in back of the car that was hushed by Hubby's short but stern, Girls! No giggles from Ali as she sits n' spins. No more of Gigit's bandaged knees to heal.

Only my voice saying, Why don't you grow up? and the silence echoing, We did.

My shoulders slump as I realize that I have come full circle. My whole life has started to make sense to me - a story with a beginning, a middle, an end. 

As it had been for Fat Mother and Mum, sewing has been a way to mend my soul. Like them, I want never to drop my stitches.

Like four-year-old Ali who, bright-eyed and with a lisp excitedly suggested, Mama, the sweethawts can sing Awky-awky together, I'd like to be attuned by stringing my blessings into chords of thankfulness so they don't unravel.   

I try to keep my yarn stash plentiful and should I run out of fabric and my bobbin need re-threading, I stay assured, as a two-year-old 'Git told me once, Mum, it wiw be o-wight.

I'm grateful for a life bound by family, the thread that ties us all together.

P.S.

And what do you know?

A seven-year-old fifth generation cutie is following sooth. 

One.

Stitch.

Two Bone Pillows for Sam. Photo. L-R: sewn by 
Grandma and Second Granddaughter, respectively.

At.


A.


Time.