Hearts of Christian HomeKeepers™

My mother is a quilter. I am not. Or at least I did not think I was. Turns out I was wrong. My quilts are not made of fabric and tiny stitches. Instead they are made of memories held together with love. You see, I am quilting the fabric of my son’s childhood.

Andy is six years old and he is my only child. The other evening I was helping him get out of the bath and I commented to him that he has come a long way from the screaming days. When he was about a 8 months old, he went through a phase where he hated to take a bath. I would set him in the warm tub and frantically scrub while he screamed and wailed like stuck pig. Apparently I had never told Andy this story and he was captivated. He wanted to hear all about his screaming fits, why he didn’t like the water and every last dripping detail. He loves to hear stories about his babyhood. I have told him the story of his birth a hundred times. This was when it occurred to me that this is the fabric of his life. These are the personal facts and antidotes that he will remember for the rest of his life. The beginning stories he will tell his grandchildren.
When Andy was born, he had a small hole in his heart that did not close upon birth like it was supposed to. When he was a week old, we went back to the hospital and I laid my precious infant on a cold machine and cried tears of joy when that machine told me the hole in his heart had closed on its own. Andy knows this story and refers to it often. He needs reassured now and then that his heart is okay and that the hole won’t come back. This is his history. His story.
We are all quilters of our children lives. Somedays we may not think twice about what we say to them or what we do to them but those words and actions are going into the weave of who they are. Take care with these little stitches. Our children will need these quilts for the rest of their lives. Let them be their comforters, their security blankets. Their stories.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 at 7:37 pm and is filed under The Christian Woman's Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.