A Gifted Quilt

At the bottom of my bed lies a folded pink and cream quilt. I imagine it was once white but time had changed it. It doesn’t really match my light green walls and “Boho Chic” comforter. In fact, it looks a little out of place here in the 21st century. Out of sorts in a time where you have the world at your fingertips, the age of social media and everything being “smart”. 

If only the stitches could talk, if the pink panels told stories or the white edges could paint a picture of what once was. 

Decades ago my great-great-grandmother made this quilt. Her name was Hattie and she was born in rural Alabama in 1864. 1864,  the year when Abraham Lincoln was reelected president and the Civil War was still raging on. She gave it to her daughter who gave it to my grandfather and last Christmas it ended up with me. 

When deciding on the pink fabric she’d never have guessed that it would one day belong to a great-great- granddaughter whose favorite color is pink. When hand stitching and tying thread it never would have crossed her mind that 86 years after her death it would be sitting on the bed of a relative she would never meet.

  When making it I wonder if in the back of her mind she was making it for me. Not knowing who specifically but knowing some generations later a girl with blood that tied back to hers would have it and would cherish it. 

I wonder if she even thought about where it would end up, whose hands would pass it down. Maybe it never dawned on her that it would outlast her, that it would be a tangible legacy. 

I’ll never know anything more about Hattie besides her husband’s and children’s names. She’ll forever be just one character on a tall family tree. Even though I like to imagine, I’ll never really know what her life was truly like. Living in the country, raising many children and apparently making quilts. 

I’ll never know if the blanket was a gift or a necessity. I’ll never know if pink was her favorite color too. 

One day generations from now my name will be added to the list of owners of this pink quilt and whoever it ends up with will ponder its origin and wish they knew the story behind every stitch. 

Until then Hattie I’ll keep it safe and cherish it always,
Your great- great-granddaughter Keilee

The magic of Walmart’s multi packs of glitter. 

Growing up I wholeheartedly believed in fairies. Not only did I believe that they existed but I also believed they often visited me. Try as I might I can’t remember what exactly led me to believe this. It could’ve been a story my Mom read to me, the Sky Dancers dolls I had or possibly Thumbelina. I think it was Thumbelina because I so loved that movie! Regardless the reason, I adored fairies. 

I dressed up as a fairy for Halloween, had a fairy birthday cake, received fairy themed presents and had all the books about fairies one could ask for, especially the book of all books; “Fairyology”. 

I would spend copious amounts of hours in the mud, dirt and sand building villages for my fairies to visit. While I had all the Barbie, Polly Pockets and Little Pet Shop houses and furniture, I believed the fairies didn’t like fake plastic and would only visit if it was made from the earth. I scavenged sticks, rocks, flowers, acorns, berries and anything I could find for my little friends. I built houses with mud walls, beds from bark and roofs from grass. I made houses, parks, restaurants, theaters and every building I thought a town could need. I made it colorful with flowers, leaves and berries. I added pebble cobblestone streets, swimming pools and got creative trying to weave long grass. I spent my springs, summers and falls outside constantly adding to my little city. 

At night when I was fast asleep the little fairies would visit leaving their sparkly pixie dust behind. Different fairies would leave different colored glitter and you could follow their paths through my town. I’d wake up and rush outside to see where the fairies had been during the night. I was always delighted when I saw their sparkling trails. Whenever I lost a tooth I would leave notes for the tooth fairy and she’d always write me back. She told stories of her friends or herself visiting my handmade village and leaving their magic dust behind. 

Years later I learned the truth, that the only magical being leaving behind sparkling dust in my fairy villages was my Mom. Maybe fairies aren’t real or maybe they are. Maybe they’re special humans with magic inside of them so little children can be excited to wake up in the mornings. Maybe they visit mud buildings at night or maybe they’re just sprinkling the multi pack of glitter they keep hidden in their sock drawer. 

Sometimes now when I see a little sparkle on the ground I stop to look at it and smile to myself and wonder what type of fairy had visited the night before.

I do believe in fairies. I do. I do. I do. 

The Story of a Grandfather 

“Keilee girl” his voice echoes in my memories. 
“I love you” plays on the saved voicemails.
“Write it all down before it fades” a voice whispers in the back of my mind. 

I can’t write it ALL down. Not all 23 years I lived or the 67 years I heard stories about before I was born. 

The country born baseball loving boy who was in the army and got scouted by the Milwaukee Braves and met the love of his life and married her 6 weeks later. The father who loved and provided, the funny and generous friend, the reliable coworker, the meticulous collector, the bird watcher, the coach who loved his boys, the expert golfer, the carpenter or the caring Grandfather. 

I can’t begin to write it all down. The memories collected like his thousands of marbles in jars. I hold tight to each one praying they don’t melt away like the ice cream sandwiches he always had for us grandkids in the summer. 

I loved him in his bright green and blue shirts and the way he rested his hand on his chin. He mischievously winked and even at 90 you could still see the child in his blue eyes. When I was little I was always fascinated by his Donald Duck impression. I loved the way he loved to find a deal at an estate sale and then sell his finds. The way he would always hum, sing or whistle “The cat came back”. Oh how I wish he could too. 

I wish I could inherit his memory like I did his restless need to be productive. He remembered dates, times, numbers, places and faces as vividly as I remember the way he always said “cheese” when he took a picture. I’d ask him to tell me the stories again. Tell me about your dog named Spot or the lightning striking the hill. Tell me about the road trips you took, tell me about that golf tournament, tell me about your father’s meat market. Tell me again where you bought that, tell me about your baseball boys. Tell it all to me again. 

The radio plays a throwback song and suddenly “I’m the Man” transports me to Christmas shopping trips and eating lunch together with him singing every word. And whenever I smell lemon or coconut, his two favorite flavors, I smile. When I open a pack of Sweet ‘N Low and grin because I got my need for sweet coffee from him. My hair whips in the wind and suddenly I’m sitting in his golf cart with him, riding through his neighborhood, under the summer sun. 

He took me to see old beautiful trees, to roll down hills, catch fish in the river and to show me the ocean. He took time to care about the little things. Even the things I did that he didn’t quite understand he still celebrated with me. 

Love is built in moments; from the bird house on Grandparents day in kindergarten to sawing a board with him just last spring. It was strengthened in all the times he was proud of me, all the times he never treated his granddaughters as less capable than his grandson and all the times he never asked us about our relationship status or never tried to nudge us into lives we didn’t want. 

Love lingers, it sits on the shelf of the book case he made me and it’s tucked safely in a drawer written in every card he’s ever given me. I hear it in the songs sung by the blue birds, in the beating of hummingbird wings and floating through wind chimes. I taste it in vanilla ice cream, Christmas ham, zebra cakes and sweet tea. It echoes in the sentimental stories my Mother tells me. 

Love is a tangible thing like the bench he made me that sits at the edge of my bed. It was his last big carpentry project and I’ll cherish it forever. It’s in Huckleberry who is currently laying at my feet, whom he loved very much. Love is carved in his handwriting into the Beech tree along with my name. It’s in the weight of the watches and jewelry he’d always let me have my pick of. 

His entire life can’t be written down just like it can’t all be packed into his buildings of antiques, preserved in bubble wrapping and boxes. His impact can’t be measured like the number of those who came to say goodbye. But the memories can replay in my mind like Bonanza we watched together on his DVR. 

He was all the little moments I spent with him and all the big milestones. He was good. A good man. A good father. A good friend. A good husband. 

But most importantly to me, a good Grandfather. 

“And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other, has ever, known” ~ In The Garden