One Stitch and Story at a Time

I’m a look-forward kind of person. I like to organize and plan, which requires looking ahead. Why, then, do I spend so much time lately looking back? 

The answer may lie somewhere between the advent of my empty nest, the arrival of grandbabies, a cross-country move, the end of a fulfilling, yet overwhelming job, and the passing of my parents. 

These days I feel the need to capture family stories. To put them in one place. To share them with my kids and grandkids. I guess you could call me a storyteller. 

My parents were storytellers. My dad told us bedtime stories from his childhood. My mom told us family stories. I remember their stories and have told some of them myself. But now I have questions. Ones that didn’t occur to me when they were here. 

Sometimes I piece together memories, bits of conversations, pictures, notes and my siblings’ memories to get a better picture of my life.

It makes me think of the quilts my mom created, piece by piece, stitch by stitch. She made a quilt for every one of her children and grandchildren.

Life is like one of my mom’s quilts. Pieced with fabrics inherited and gathered, sewn with threads over and under and through. 

I found a piece of my quilt when I went back — for the first time in more than 40 years — to the place I spent my first 3 years of life. 

Here’s the story. 

It’s a long weekend in the middle of summer: the perfect time for a road trip. But this isn’t like the road trips we took when our five kids were growing up. It’s just my husband and me. We pack two suitcases, trip snacks and hit the road with a wide-open itinerary. 

After leaving home, we merge onto a road that winds south through the Appalachians. Driving through the green hills convinces us that John Denver is right when he sings: “Almost heaven; West Virginia…” 

At Winston-Salem, we turn east towards the research triangle of UNC, Duke and NC State, where my dad was a professor. 

The next morning, my husband and I drive to my parents’ first home. As we wind through the neighborhood set in a forest, no less than 4 people wave to us. Southern Hospitality is everywhere here.

I had the house number wrong, but with my brother’s directions — it’s on the corner with loads of ivy and towering pines — and my memory of pictures, we make it to the place. We park in front and I knock on the door. A woman in her 70’s peeks through the screen. I introduce myself and ask if I can walk around the yard. She smiles and nods yes. Her husband comes out. After a walk around the house, he invites us in.

I try to look past their fingerprints and furnishings. The fireplace and hearth are original. My husband says: you should sit on the hearth for a picture. You probably sat there before.

Turns out I did.

Sit there before. 

• 

• 

We turn to the living room. The man said it once had gold-leafed crown molding. Which reminds me of my dad telling me how he and my mom met an interior designer. She advised them to buy the best they could of North Carolina furniture. She could see they were just starting out and were willing to work, so she suggested they hang crown molding. She said it would be beautiful to outline the design in gold paint. My dad took on the project. I picture his big hands moving the paintbrush deliberately around the relief. 

The man told me he thought he kept the molding. We walk through ivy and trees, so many trees, to the crawl space where he finds the crown molding right away.  

I had forgotten the crown molding until the man mentioned it, but I hadn’t forgotten another account about this spot. It was a story both my mom and my dad shared. It’s the one I think of most often when I picture this part of our family history. This piece of the quilt is filled with remembrances and roses. 

In the yard, I hoped to find a garden filled with rose bushes. With one rose bush in particular — a peace rose.

Decades ago, during our time in North Carolina and before I was born, my older sister got sick. 

I try to imagine my parent’s feelings. Their baby had been ill for days and at first, the doctor didn’t know what was wrong. He performed a surgery that went longer than expected. He couldn’t finish and scheduled a follow-up surgery. My parents took their little girl home to heal. She learned to walk that week. 

Then for the second time, they drove her to the hospital. They prayed and paced. They held onto hope and held onto each other. Hours passed. They heard an emergency code. Their hopes dropped. They didn’t bring their little girl home.

That fall my dad prepared a circle of soil. He surrounded it with brick edging.

My mom went to the nursery to look at rose bushes. She was drawn to one that was light yellow with blush edges, a peace rose. She chose this for her little girl.

My parents planted the rose bush together. Something they could care for and watch bloom year after year.

I was born the next spring. There is a picture of my mom and my brother and me beside a pale yellow rose in the garden.

When I mention a rose garden to the current homeowner, he walks me to a spot. A little garden edged with brick. There are only two rose bushes left. He points to the one he thinks is original.

It isn’t in bloom, but one branch covered with fine leaves reaches heavenward.

With no blooms, it is easy for me to believe it is the peace rose. 

• 

• 

By themselves, fabric pieces and threads don’t feel like a quilt. You see them separately and fail to see how they can be stitched into something whole and complete. 

It’s hard to see the beauty of the entire quilt when you are working on it.

But when you stand still and stand back, you see.