Quilting

"You will take the small pair of scissors and I will use the large ones," my mother instructed me as we sat at our large improvised quilting table. My father had laid a large piece of plywood across two sawhorse beams in the back yard so that mother could engage in one of her favorite leisure activities and as it was summer break I was also to be involuntarily employed in the production of the quilts.

She brought out several large bolts of fabric in colors that could only be described as not in good taste, at least by today's standards. One was of an iridescent orange stamped in irregular pattern of green flowers and the other of an off white color with yellowish splotches around the edges. We were not a family of great means so she shopped at the local discount store, the forerunner of the dollar store, and if the fabric ended up there it was not usually at the top of anyone's shopping list. Nonetheless, we had our fabric, our assignment and a deadline. Today we were to assemble several quilts for the Summer Church Fair which which was a big event in our town.

The fair was a hodgepodge and included a combination of used goods that mostly looked like they came out of the trash (and were destined to go right back in) as well as original items like the quilts that were probably destined for the same fate. The high point for me was the pop-up amusement park with rides. My brother and I loved this part of the fair and it was considered our reward for all of my hard work on the quilts.

"You have to contribute to get back," mother would say in that typically mid-century American way.

"What about my brother? Why doesn't he have to contribute?"

"He's different than you," she answered.

I don't know if she intuited something I didn't know, but at that age my task was clear. I was on summer break and if I wanted to ride the ferris wheel I had to sew. And sew we did. She and I would cut the fabric into various shapes and sizes, put them at the end of our table and assemble them into quilts. I was never sure if she was aware that the whole quilt should come to some sort of definite shape and size and am not sure if she even cared. We would engage in our ritual for an hour or so, take lunch and come back to the same task day after day.

By the end of the two weeks we had assembled some 30 quilts.

"Look at that, each one a work of art," she said after two weeks of sewing. She laid all of the quilts out in the living room and I can't say if I felt the same unless you consider quilt making to be a form of abstract art. I beheld the 30 quilts before me, the whole a mixture of colors that can only be described as, well, indescribable. There were some that were of three colors, some of dozens, each one misshapen, some almost even oval shaped.

"I though they were all supposed to be rectangular" I commented.

"Whatever would make you say that?" she replied and I dropped the topic.

To be honest, none of them could really ever be used as quilts. As I had not yet entered any type of growth spurt I could barely see to the end of the quilting table and wasn't really sure how my pieces were fitting together as a whole and, to top it all off, my stitching was clearly wanting as some of the pieces weren't really fastened securely. Some quilts had jagged edges and ended suddenly as though the rest had fallen off the face of the earth. Still others had ragged endings where my blunted scissors couldn't make a clean cut. But mother was happy. We packed it all into the car and took box upon box to the fair.

Her church friends were glad to see her when we arrived since she was the only one who supplied quilts. It appeared as though baked goods were easier to produce and more popular to sell. In the end it didn't really matter since my brother and I got our promised rides after which I always reminded him, "you owe me one for all the work I did." That year's fair and many to come were a success for my mother as all of her quilts as always sold out and funds were raised.

The years passed and eventually so did mother. When we cleaned out her house we realized that in the years since our father had died she was more active than we had known. In her bedroom closet and bureau we discovered many a quilt, all somewhat misshapen. My brother and I took them all to the funeral parlor and arranged them around her in what we thought was a fitting tribute. It was quite a spectacle and we were only limited in number by the fire safety considerations of the funeral director. Apparently, she had kept sewing until the end and here all was on display. Her surviving church friends came to pay respects and praise her work. It was there that one of them revealed something that I don't ever think had even been spoken aloud.

"Your mother was the greatest," said one of her friends. "Every year she kept producing those God awful quilts and every year we made sure that every one sold! She loved to sew and we loved her for it." Apparently, the members of the church took it upon themselves to buy up every last quilt in order that my mother feel needed and her contribution valuable. She never knew this and for that I remain forever grateful.

Eventually I moved to New York to pursue professional aspirations. The experience of such a city was unlike any other, the life of a dream to a 20-something. That is, until my friends started to get sick and die. We didn't know what was afflicting these souls as they wasted away and left us. Gradually we were able to place a name to the disease.

AIDS

I heard from a friend about this new project that was being put together, something about a memorial quilt for victims of the disease. I met with about 10 other strangers in a studio in Chelsea and we sat around a table in silence. I didn't have to bring any materials and this time had proper scissors. I could tell that these were people who knew how to quilt.

They asked us to come up with names and favorite themes of the dead that would comprise each panel and I thought of those few deaths that had greatly affected me. We met weekly and as my quilting skills were somewhat lacking, so to speak, I was paired up with a woman who showed me the correct way to stitch a durable quilt. Stich by stich I was to create a tribute to my two friends who had passed and in turn this would be attached to the next piece and so on. This time the quilt was symmetrical and by some standards, quite artistically done.

The conclusion of our project involved hundreds of volunteers from all over the country gathering in Washington DC and assembling the quilt in pieces on the National Mall. Our group traveled together by bus with our quilt in hand and spread it out in our appointed location. I invited my brother to attend as he had relocated to Washington and I hadn't seen him in some time.

We embraced each other and he looked at my quilt. It was absolutely perfect, he mused and said that our mother would be proud of me. He saw in the one corner all jagged edges, out of sorts in unmatching colors. I told him that part was in honor of her and her unique sense of style and taste. He laughed.

He them reminded me of the church fairs and how I always said the he "owed me one." He revealed to me that the debt had already been paid many times over and told me that our mother had once mentioned to him that I had reminded her of Liberace, the flamboyant entertainer, but couldn't quite put her finger on just why. He, of course, didn't know what she was talking about but recalled that at that tender age all boys were expected to play sports. He also reminded me that this ended up being the most horror inducing and abusive experience that I personally had ever encountered in my short life, so we surmised that she and my father came to an informal agreement. My brother would play sports and I would learn to quilt. Thereby she could protect me until I could discover myself and learn to play my own games.

And that, he reiterated, was how the debt was repaid.