Chicken Soup for the Grandma's Soul

  Silence. Even the background music seemed to sense this blessed moment. My tears fell onto the doll’s fluffy white dress as I sat on the couch. “Thank you, Grandma.”

  “You’re welcome, dear.”

  I noticed a tear trace down a wrinkle, falling onto her shoulder.

  “Did you want to keep her?” I asked, stroking the doll.

  “No.”

  “Then why are you crying?”

  “I knew you would enjoy a treasure from the attic.”

  I was grateful I missed the concert, for I received priceless treasures from Grandma’s. Not just the doll, but her stories and her smile, permanently etched into my mind.

  Anne Johnson

  A Quilted Life

  Remembrance is the only paradise out of which we cannot be driven away.

  Jean Paul Richter

  There is a quilt on every bed in my grandmother’s battered farmhouse. Most of the patchwork blankets are generations old. Their bindings sport holes of wear. Newer quilts flaunt their fresh, rich colors in Grandma’s room. My first attempt at quilting hangs on her wall. The colors are bright, but the shapes are ever-so-slightly askew. Nevertheless, every uneven stitch holds meaning. Each crooked patch tells a story.

  Years ago, during our annual family reunion at Grandma’s farm, my cleaning project was the musty linen closet. I discovered a vibrant quilt top while sorting through the handmade towels, table clothes and bedding. It was patterned in a radiating star, the Star of Bethlehem. My head reeled with the stories this quilt might tell.

  I brought the top to my grandmother. She would remember. “It was given to Annie,” she said, a 1930s-era barter for the medical services of my great-aunt. The quilter spent hours cutting tiny pieces and then handstitching them together. For the maker, the quilt was a means to health care during the parched days of the Depression.

  Later that weekend my grandmother placed her meditations book into my hands. She pointed a shaky finger to the day’s lesson: “Opening your heart and home to those in need.” Then she shared old stories of how abolitionists used quilt code to signal slaves. Quilts displayed ciphers hidden in the Log Cabin, Hourglass, Drunkard’s Path and North Star patterns, among others. They were maps to freedom seen by all, understood by few. Quilts made with black cloth and featuring log cabins beckoned from clotheslines in front of houses that promised fugitive slaves warm meals, beds, safety and friendship. They meant home.

  It dawned on me at that moment that every quilt is someone’s story, a colorful history coded into a bright array of patchwork. The Depression quilt and the safe-haven quilts tell stories of survival. It was then I decided to make a quilt that told my grandmother’s story. Hers is also a story of survival.

  My grandmother spent her life caring for others. She made her home a welcoming haven. Family member, friend, neighbor and even stranger could count on a warm meal and bed at the farm. The Watkins man conveniently chose mealtimes to peddle his trove of spices, mixes and flavorings at the farm. And he was always given a place at the table. Even during the Depression, there was always an extra plate, though the homestead was not a place of wealth.

  The family lived day to day, like most did, always dependent on the next rain for the crops to come in. In the Dust Bowl years, the children wore hand-me-down clothes from the neighbors and feed-sack creations. Grandma would remake the hand-me-downs, carefully pulling stitches at the seams and refitting the clothes to ever-growing children. My aunt Kathryn loved her Nutrena pellet food-sack coat. The orange of the feed sack washed out to leave a jaunty print behind, fitting for a young girl’s wardrobe.

  Grandma used every scrap of fabric and put away every piece of metal or paper for another time. Years of packratting resulted in closets and crawl spaces filled to the rafters with Saturday Evening Posts, vegetable remedies and bitters, and even wooden clogs, aprons and dresses from the Old Country. Farm animals had long abandoned outbuildings, crowded out by discarded furniture, broken down Fords and tractors, and even horse-drawn wagons. Hence each reunion was a virtual treasure hunt for antique goodies, as well as a nostalgic trip down memory lane for all sixty-four of my grandmother’s descendants.

  Unlike my ancestors, I don’t depend on Grandma’s farm for subsistence of body. For me it means a warm meal and safe bed for my soul—subsistence of spirit.

  I remember annual vacations at the farm. It was the most carefree time I have ever known. I ran wild with my cousins. We plucked mulberries from the trees, snuck into Grandpa’s candy drawer and ate fresh-baked cinnamon rolls during the days. We climbed into the featherbeds upstairs and told ghost stories at night. Our parents reminisced in the kitchen below us, their laughter eventually lulling us to sleep.

  I take my own family to the farm now. I spend the days making repairs, cooking, cleaning and occasionally short-sheeting a bed or two. My son runs with his cousins, experiencing the freedom of spirit that I still feel in this old house. I tuck him into bed, and it’s my turn to laugh until midnight with my cousins, aunts and uncles in the kitchen.

  I have more good memories of my time at the farm than from any other period of my life. It’s there that I return my focus to living every moment, not worrying about tomorrow or next week. It’s there that I find my peace and my soul. I find rejuvenation to go home, to create a story for myself that may end up on a quilt someday.

  My grandmother created not just a house, but a home— a place of shelter for the body and spirit, not only for her children and grandchildren, but for neighbors and strangers alike. Her life was hard, backbreaking at times. But I do not have to ask her why she worked so hard. I can see why when she watches her great-grandchildren play at her feet. Her gentle smile and sparkling eyes are affirmation enough. This is the story her quilt tells.

  Julie Dunbar

  Sister Said

  He gives not best who gives most; but he gives most who gives best.

  Arthur Warwick

  No two words in the English language could send our household into more of a tizzy than those two words, “Sister said.” So when I announced shortly after Thanksgiving that the nuns at my elementary school said I was going to be one of the angels in the Christmas play, it set the wheels in motion for the most frenzied of activities. My grandma rummaged through a trunk of yard goods, looking for the whitest of white scraps, while my father measured me shoulder to shoulder, neckline to shoe top. My mother searched the drawers and cupboards for the little bit of gold ribbon Sister said we were to wear around our waists. My father outlined wings on huge pieces of cardboard, wings that Sister said were to measure fourteen inches long and ten inches wide at the center. My daily messages of “Sister said” brought occasional moans and groans from my dressmakers as plans were changed and sleeves had to cover our fingertips, not stop at the wrist as those on my robe did. Another day, Sister said the hem should be at least four inches deep and we should wear a pink slip under the robe, not a white one such as my grandma had just finished making.

  When my brother Tom came home one night two weeks before Christmas and said that his Sister had said that our family had to come to the Scout meeting that night, my father groaned the loudest and said, “But tonight I’m supposed to cut out those wings because Sister said Jeanie had to hand them in tomorrow for inspection!”

  “Now, Raymond, you know perfectly well that I can cut out those wings,” Grandma said. “You all go right ahead to that meeting, just like Sister said.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” my mother said. “You’ve been so tired lately. And you’ve taken that angel robe apart so many times the material is almost as worn as you.”

  “I’ll be just fine,” Grandma snapped. “Every stitch of the angel robe is made of love, and that’s what keeps me going.”

  For the next few days and nights, my parents were too caught up with the Scouts’ Christmas program to help much with the creation of my angel robe, so when, late one Friday night, I said that Sister said the angels had to wear white shoes, my grandma p
romised, “We’ll go right downtown tomorrow, Jeanie, just the two of us, and shop for those shoes. You parents have put enough wear and tear on their car for the time being.”

  Even though my mother exclaimed that the real wear and tear was more apparent on my grandmother, Grandma Thomas would hear none of it. Once again, she recited her line about every stitch of that robe being made of love.

  Eight days before the play, Sister said it would be nice if all the angels had curls in their hair the night of the play, but not too many curls. Out came Grandma’s bag of rags and each night before bedtime, she rolled up my hair, practicing, hoping to find that fine line between curly and not too curly. She listened patiently, too, as I sang “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” a song Sister said we had to sing every night until we had the words down pat.

  Each ensuing evening I had new and often contradictory tales of what Sister had said that day in regard to the angel robe. In their struggles to comply, my parents’ nerves were often set on edge. Was it any wonder that when I came home four days before the play and tearfully said that Sister said I couldn’t be an angel after all because I seemed too fat, my father thundered, “That does it! That does it! Too fat? Why, if you weighed an ounce less, you’d BE an angel, I fear. I do not ever want to hear ‘Sister said’ again in this house!”

  “There must be some mistake,” Grandma Thomas said softly.

  “No, no! I know that’s what Sister said,” I cried.

  “You march right up to Sister tomorrow, Jeanie,” my mother said, “and get this straightened out. I’m sure there is some mistake. You are not too fat and you never will be.”

  “I can’t do that,” I sobbed. “Sister never makes mistakes.”

  “Perhaps if I went . . .” Grandma began, but my father said, “Absolutely not!”

  “Jeanie must learn to stand on her own two feet,” my mother said. “After all the work, all the love you put into that robe—why, I am sure there has been a mistake.”

  Thinking about all that love and how heartbroken my grandmother must have been kept me awake most of the night. The next morning I waited until the very last minute before leaving for school, hoping my grandmother would defy my parents and go with me. Or perhaps my father would not be as angry and would take matters into his own hands. Surely my mother would see I had not slept well. Maybe she would say, “You poor thing. You must stay home today. I will go talk to Sister myself.”

  But none of those dreams came true, and I ended up standing on my own two feet beside Sister’s desk, asking, “Sister, why did you say I seemed too fat to be an angel?”

  “Too fat!” Sister said, truly taken aback. “I never said— oh, I think I understand. Jeanie, I never said you seem too fat. I said you ‘sing too flat.’ Besides, I want you to be the narrator. You have a good strong voice and read very well. Will you do that part for me?”

  Sing too flat! Not seem too fat! And now I was going to be narrator! The narrator’s part was the best of the whole play!

  “Oh, Sister,” I said in a rush. “Oh, Sister, I’ll do my very best. I’d much rather read than sing, you know.”

  “Don’t I know!” Sister teased kindly.

  “But . . . but, Sister,” I asked, “What does the narrator wear?”

  “Anything you want,” Sister said. “You must have a special outfit you want to wear. Think it over and tell me about it when school is out.”

  I didn’t need to think it over long, for school had barely begun when I knew the only outfit I wanted to wear. Now if only Sister would say yes, I prayed as the day dragged on.

  When the bell rang at 3:30, I stood before Sister’s desk once more.

  “Have you decided on your outfit, Jeanie?” Sister asked as she straightened out her desktop.

  “Yes, Sister, I have.”

  “And what is it made of? Cotton? Rayon? Velvet?”

  Cotton? Rayon? Velvet? I didn’t know! I only knew one thing my outfit was made of. Would Sister understand?

  I drew a deep breath before I poured out the story of my outfit. At the story’s end, I said, “So you see, Sister, all I know is that every stitch of my outfit is made of love. SO will that be okay?”

  Sister bent down, picked me up and hugged me close as she tenderly whispered her reply.

  My father wasn’t home yet, so I could safely say “Sister said” without listening to him groan. It’s too bad he wasn’t there, because he didn’t hear me shout as I came in the front door, “Sister said I can wear the angel robe! Sister said it’s made of exactly what Christmas is made of! Lots and lots of love!”

  And you know Sister. Sister never made a mistake.

  Jean Jeffrey Gietzen

  Gifts of the Heart

  Every gift, though it may be small, is in reality great if given with affection.

  Peter Pindar

  My eleventh birthday was just a week away when we arrived in the refugee camp on that bleak and cold November day in 1947. My grandparents, who were raising me, and I had fled our Soviet-occupied Hungary with only the clothes we were wearing. The refugee camp, called a displaced persons camp, was in Spittal, Austria.

  To cold and hungry people like us, the refugee camp was a blessing. We were given our own space in a barrack, fed hot soup and given warm clothes, so we were grateful. But as for my upcoming birthday, I didn’t even want to think about it. After all, we had left our country without any possessions or money. So I had decided to forget about birthday presents from then on.

  My grandmother, the only mother I ever knew, had taken over my care when I was a baby because her only child, my mother, had died suddenly. Before the war intensified, my birthdays had been grand celebrations with many cousins in attendance and lots of gifts. The cake had always been a dobosh torte, which my grandmother prepared herself.

  My eighth birthday was the last time I received a bought gift. Times were already hard, money was scarce and survival the utmost goal. But my grandmother had managed to buy me a book. It was a wonderful book, full of humor and adventure, and I loved it. In fact, Cilike’s Adventures had transported me many times, from the harshness of the real world of war and strife to a world of laughter and fun.

  After that, birthday presents were usually crocheted or knitted items, made lovingly by my grandmother—but there was always a present. However, in the refugee camp, I was resigned to the inevitable.

  On November 25, when I woke in the barrack, I lay there on my little cot beneath the horsehair blanket and thought about being eleven. I was practically a grown-up, I told myself, and I would act accordingly when Grandma and Grandpa awoke. I didn’t want them to feel bad because they couldn’t give me a present.

  So I dressed quickly and tiptoed out quietly. I ran across the frosty dirt road to the barrack marked “Women’s Bathroom and Shower,” washed, combed my hair and took my time, even though it was chilly, before returning to the barrack. But finally, I returned.

  “Good morning, sweetheart. Happy birthday,” Grandfather greeted me.

  “Thank you. But I would rather forget about birthdays now,” I replied, squirming in his generous hug.

  “You are too young to forget about birthdays,” Grandmother said. “Besides, who would I give this present to if birthdays are to be forgotten?”

  “Present?” I looked at her surprised, as she reached into her pocket and pulled something out.

  “Happy birthday, honey. It’s not much of a present, but I thought you might enjoy having Cilike back on your eleventh birthday,” she said with tears in her eyes.

  “My old Cilike book! But I thought it was left behind with all our other things,” I exclaimed, hugging the book to my chest, tears of joy welling up in my eyes.

  “Well, it almost was. But when we had to leave so quickly in the middle of the night, I grabbed it, along with my prayer book, and stuck it in my pocket. I knew how much you loved that book; I couldn’t bear to leave it behind. Happy birthday, honey. I’m sorry it’s not a new book, but I hope you like having i
t back.”

  “Oh, thank you, Grandma. Having this book again means so much to me. So very much,” I said, hugging her, tears streaming down my cheeks. “It’s the best birthday present I ever received!”

  And it truly was, because I realized that day how blessed I was.

  Gifts of the heart are always the best gifts. They are true gifts of love.

  Renie Burghardt

  Marking Time

  Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s what life is made of.

  Benjamin Franklin

  I was late. Again. My fancy digital watch was losing twenty minutes a day. I’d made three trips to the store that week and every time forgot to buy a new battery. A mom on a constant schedule, I needed an accurate timepiece, so I grabbed the only other watch I owned, a delicate silver one my grandmother left me when she died.

  Nana’s watch was small with a diamond-encircled face and a sliver of a band. It was beautiful and petite, just like she was. I’d always loved it but rarely wore it. It was the old-fashioned, battery-free kind that needed winding each night. For me, a person who had trouble remembering to feed the cats, wearing a watch requiring any degree of upkeep was a bad idea.

  The first few days I wore Nana’s watch, I kept forgetting to wind it and still ended up late for everything. But by week’s end, its elfin face and ticking second hand were as familiar to me as the feel of Nana’s hand in mine when I was a child.

  Wearing the watch wrapped me in memories of her. She used to take regular walks around the yard, just to see the loganberry trees in bloom. After dinner, she and Grandpa would walk me down to the 7-11 for a packet of M&M’S. We spent countless afternoons strolling downtown, window-shopping, and dreaming of things to buy and adventures we’d have someday.

  Nana appreciated the value of time. Her son, Bobby, died when he was eight, in a tragic accident that left a measure of perpetual sadness in Nana’s eyes. In 1976, Nana herself slipped through death’s grasp when she had a brain tumor removed successfully.