Stitching My Shattered Heart

“Of course she can, Russell!”

That was the beginning of my first sewing lesson.

Papa’s pajama pants needed to be hemmed. Bless his heart, Mama had just discovered he had “hemmed” them himself, with four large paperclips.

Mama knew if Papa’s “hem” failed he could trip and take a tumble. He was nearly 80, a fall at that age could be tragic. We all knew Mama was well beyond the ability to use her beloved sewing machine, even just to hem Papa’s pants.

“Russell go get all the pants you’ve done that to, bring them in here, and let Kim hem them.” Well, that got my attention! Papa, who’d never once in 20 years seen me in front of a sewing machine asked, “Oh? Kim, can you sew?”

That’s the moment the sweetest most generous and loving woman I’ve ever known bellowed from her recliner next to his the words I’ll never forget as long as I live…

“Of course she can, Russell!”

Well, now what was I going to do? I quickly fixed the look of shock on my face but I think Papa caught it. This was some pickle Mama had put me in. Not jumping in right away with the truth was as good as lying. Correcting Mama wasn’t even a consideration. So what if she’d become who we’d lovingly dubbed “The General” in her final months. She was still Mom, a gentle force who’d loved and cared for us all. And her voice was one of the few parts of her she still commanded as she lay there with time racing away.

“Russell go get your pants! Kim, honey, go downstairs and get my sewing machine.” As Papa left the room I stood up gently from my place on the floor beside her chair. As I stood I asked her in a voice only she could hear, “Mama, you do remember I can’t sew, don’t you?” She nodded as she said, “You’ll be fine. I’m right here.” So I walked downstairs and picked up Mama's sewing machine, which from that moment on, was mine.

Back upstairs I set the machine up on a small table. Papa only half paid attention as he sat talking with my hubby. I’d married the only biological child Mama ever had and instantly became her daughter, single word, no dashes tolerated.

I gave quite a performance as I set it up. Frantically my mind inspected the machine while my body moved as slowly as it could. I walked a sugar-spun line between the truth and deception when I commented casually to Mom, “I might need just a bit of help. This machine is different from any I’ve ever used before.”

Between Mama and the manual, I managed to get it threaded. With the pants right side out I folded a cuff on each leg and sewed the ugliest stitch line right down the middle of the cuff, all the way around. I was so tickled with myself!

Not only had I managed to pull off this stunt Mama had set me up for but I had finally learned how to sew on a machine! Papa ohhhh’d and ahhhh’d and thanked me genuinely. As he passed me to put the pants away he winked as he said in a voice only I could hear, “Don’t worry, you’ll get better with practice.”

Later I had one more lesson with Mama. I sat beside her on the thickly carpeted floor with one of her patterns asking what each new word and symbol meant. For years we had talked about sitting down together “one of these days” so she could teach me to sew. Now time had run out. Looking, pointing, speaking to explain, required energy and strength she no longer had. “Just take it all home with you and keep practicing. You’ll get the hang of it.”

I loaded several boxes of material and notions into the truck. Later I unpacked them into my new sewing room. The emotions that began to battle in my heart that day stayed with me for quite some time. Every time I sat to sew my excitement over the realization of this long-held dream danced with the gut-wrenching thoughts that all of this should still be Mamas. She should be the one crafting beautiful things with these supplies.

But Mama had long ago lost the ability to sew. As we cared for her in her final years, then months, then days we’d see cancer take everything from her. It took her every joy, ability, then even her thoughts, never ceasing its ravaging of her body until it had taken her very last breath.

Cancer took my mother when I was a seven-year-old girl. The day I married I got Mama. I had the gift of her love for 20 years. Now cancer was taking her too. Every day, sparked by a look or a thought my heart shattered over and over and over again.

Some days I’d go in my sewing room and sit at the machine she used when she made our wedding clothes. I would feel her with me, feel her love, and a soothing calm would settle over me like a weighted blanket transforming me as I sewed.

Other times, when I sat at her machine I felt like an imposter as I sat surrounded by her fabric, matching it to thread in her vast collection. I held her prized Fiskars scissors.

Still, I was excited to have my own pair of “good scissors.” I used them with great care, as Mama always had. The only acceptable use for Mama’s “good sewing scissors” was cutting fabric and thread. The only acceptable user of them was Mama. Mama could no longer love them so I was gonna love them for her. They’d only be used on fabric and thread, and only I would use them.

Starting with her scissors I came to feel our love for each other surrounding me as I used and cared lovingly for what was once so precious to her.

On the good days, when everything felt right it was as if she were right there with me. Her presence guided my thoughts. Every stitch in the fabric created a matching stitch within me as I gathered and tried to mend the fragments of my shattered heart.

At first, the bad days were far more prevalent than the good. So many times I sat waiting and hoping but the peace never came. Each start of the machine resulted in frustration. These were the days the thread tangled, the needle snapped and all my cuts were off. The pain was too great to feel the joy.

I’d decided to make a patchwork quilt. I had everything I needed and no idea what I was doing. I started putting it together with extreme deliberation. I choose solids and patterns I liked and felt went together well. I researched and calculated the size.

Then I began to cut, and I cut, and I cut. As I sat with my husband in the evenings I cut. After coffee when hubby went to spend the mornings with Mama and Papa, I cut. And one magical day I bought a cutting mat and a Fiskars Rotary Cutter, and the angels sang, and I quickly finished my cutting.

As quickly as the cutting came together that first row of squares was sewn together. Somewhere along in there in the midst of piecing all the rows together, we lost Mama. I shut the door on the sewing room and the rows I had pieced together, while the rest of my world fell apart.

In the days that followed, I walked past that door so many times. My desire to go in couldn’t outweigh my fear of the pain I expected on the other side.

And then one day it did. I walked past the door and felt as compelled to go in as I had previously felt not to. I walked in, dropped the needle on my record player, dropped the needle on my sewing machine, and simply lost myself in the hum, and the rhythm, and happy memories with Mama. When I finally stopped to stretch I couldn’t believe how much I’d sewn together.

In the days and weeks that followed working on the quilt took on new meaning. It became a project of healing. Time and again I sat releasing a bit of the pain, reflecting on the warmth of Mom’s love. When I found myself lost in sadness, bored with sitting still and not wanting to move, I’d go into my sewing room, drop the needle on my record player, drop the needle on my machine, and lose myself in the hum, and the rhythm, and the happy memories with Mama. I stitched grief and heartache into the quilt but walked away from it feeling comfort and love. Time after time I sat to sew, full of sadness, and stood to stretch feeling better.

By the time I began sewing the rows together I knew the quilt was the physical embodiment of my journey of healing. My husband and I began to rebuild our lives. We’d known we eventually would when we walked away from our world three years before to live with Mama in hers. Each step toward normalcy and each stitch of the quilt brought a bit of healing and strength I so desperately needed.

Three weeks after Mama passed I finished the top of my Healing Quilt. I carefully selected and purchased new material for the back. I had the batting and thread. . . . . Everything lay there on my sewing table waiting to be assembled. The only thing I needed was a darning or walking foot to turn my Simple Singer into a quilting machine. Three weeks after Mama passed and my Healing Quilt had stabilized my grief. I was excited to complete it. I felt so strongly that once it was whole, maybe I would be as well.

A shattered heart just beginning to heal is a very fragile thing. A strong breeze could have undone the stitches at that time. Not even my Healing Quilt could keep me together when Hurricane “Who else do you love most in all this world?” tore through my life three weeks after I lost Mama. I packed every piece of my quilt away sobbing and knowing healing would not be found for quite some time if it was ever to be found at all.

My baby sister, a single mom to four, had just been diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 36. Learning she’d discovered it and lived alone in silent fear for nearly a year, we feared it had been acknowledged far too late. Of the other four women in our close family who’d also received this same unwanted intrusion in their early 30s only one had survived.

My sister needed us in every possible way. Once again we sold all we could, packed what we kept, and traveled across the country. We’d live with her, maintaining her home and family and caring for her through her year-long treatment.

My healing, and my Healing Quilt, would wait in storage. It became a beacon of hope and motivation to think of it. I longed for the day I would hopefully be able to continue a healing path back toward a happier life of normalcy.

The quilt remained in storage but I kept the machine close at hand. With four kids and three adults in the home, I had lots of opportunities to practice. My projects grew from torn seams to basic skirts and dresses, and later, patterns. With my new skills came the realization that using Mama’s sewing machine brought healing regardless of the project under the needle.

The sands of time were playing tricks and a year that felt like an eternity went as quick as a popsicle on a hot summer day. In the battle for my baby sister’s life, one of the fighters never stood a chance. My sister beat cancer so bad!!! It shriveled and disappeared too ashamed to show its ugly face again.

My hubby and I found a quiet spot where we could lie alone together, lick our wounds, and remember the motions of normal life.

After a bit of time in our own figurative recovery room, we were ready to turn planning into doing. Again we rented a trailer and loaded everything from storage. This time drove only six hours until we stopped in our new hometown. We’d decided if we were going to start all over again it would be in a place we’d long wanted to call home. Our beloved restorative mountains of Western North Carolina.

We spent about a year getting established. We found an apartment, jobs, and the best local thrift store. We slowly built our home, beginning with a used sleeper sofa and two plates that had a pattern of big red strawberries in the middle.

We bought a much-needed second vehicle, with all-wheel drive, looked for better jobs, and continued to be motivated by our dream. One day we’d be in a home of our own again. We longed for the complete return of the stability and permanency owning your own roof brings. Each footprint left behind us fueled the next step ahead. We were beginning to be able to talk about Mama without a flood of sadness every time.

Then we, along with the rest of the world, went home and spent the next year learning Pandemic 101. We dug in and held on. We lost a no longer needed but loved truck. Yet the tiny toe hold we had gained was enough to keep us clinging to the cliff as the world descended into chaos around us. I could do nothing about the gaping pothole preventing us from continuing down the path to our dream but wait for it to be repaired.

With time on my hands and a mission of mask making, I set to work unpacking boxes in our spare room. When I finally stood to review the result I had a new sewing room- complete with a HUGE sewing and craft table in the middle and my record player in the corner. We still didn’t have much of anything but I recognized a good sewing table when I saw one. Or rather, when I saw two slightly damaged interior doors being placed by the curb as garbage. Stacks of packing boxes made the base and a sheet disguised the top. Mama would have been proud of my ingenuity.

I realized as I stood there I was filled with peace and love. I felt Mama’s presence with me and again began to think of my Healing Quilt. Though I wasn’t ready to unpack it I now had faith I one day would be.

Again I was thankful for my cutting mat and Fiskars Rotary Cutter. I cut and sewed masks for my entire large extended family and anyone else who wanted one. I sewed dresses, curtains, and other crafts. Occasionally I’d get a package in the mail from one of the littles, now 6 hours away. “Aunt Kim, can you fix the zipper on these pants, please?” And from the youngest, “Aunt Kim, I love you. Can you fix my stuffy, please? Love Lil Bit.”

I learned new techniques, my confidence grew, and I began to think about unpacking my Healing Quilt. I purchased an embroidery foot and walking foot and I made a tiny quilted sleeping bag for my tiny spoiled pooch. I found the material for a fabric book and created a storybook baby quilt for my first great-nephew. Nearly two years old and I’ve never met the Lil Fella. I sewed love into every stitch and I stitched in a hidden message of love.

And as I sewed this quilt I thought of another. I smiled as the simple realization settled on me. I was ready to finish my Healing Quilt. At the same moment, another exciting thought dawned on me. I had passed a milestone and this time when I sat to assemble my quilt I would be filling it with hope, love, and positivity.

Life has unfrozen on a world desperate to return to normal. In addition to sewing, Hubby and I both used the time to find wonderful jobs that will fuel the remainder of our journey to find Home. The giant pothole is being filled.

And the other day when I washed some of Mom’s clothes I’d kept for projects and piles of shredded tissue came falling out of the dryer, I smiled and chuckled thinking of how every pocket Mama owned had at least two tissues in it. As I folded and hung the clothes more tissue fluttered down with every item I shook out. I was finally laughing so hard I had to wipe the tears from my eyes.

Before I unpacked my Healing Quilt and Mama’s good scissors my baby sister called with a great idea for my next project. We’re getting everyone in the family to personalize a quilt square which I’ll sew into a Legacy Quilt. It’ll be the family’s birthday gift to Dad this year. Not a Healing Quilt but most definitely a love quilt.

It won’t surprise me if I somehow don’t get around to finishing my Healing Quilt for another year or so. That’s about how much longer I figure we’re gonna need to save before we’re ready to take the final steps to Home. And now that we’re so close I’m kinda thinking Home is the best place to make the final healing stitches, in both my Healing Quilt and my shattered heart.