Skirts, blouses, slacks—I sorted through the items from the closet, deciding what to send to Goodwill.
One skirt I considered keeping. I could easily alter it, I thought. No. I added it to the give-away pile.
I hadn’t picked up a needle and thread in 30-odd years. Not since the death of my grandmother. Mamaw ran an alterations business out of her little stone cottage. I spent long afternoons watching her work at the dining room table, surrounded by suits and dresses hung from the sconces, all ready for her customers.
“A garment should be just as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside,” Mamaw taught me as we sat side by side one afternoon, studying the inner seams of a flower-patterned blouse. “A good seamstress takes pride even in the stitches nobody can see.”
When my history teacher strode into class wearing that same flowered blouse, none of the other kids knew about Mamaw’s hidden stitches, but I sure did.
Back in the ’60s, all us girls learned how to sew in school. Thanks to Mamaw I was miles ahead of my classmates. She helped me make curtains for my Sunday school classroom and taught me fancy tricks, like covered button holes.
And if my stitches weren’t perfect? Mamaw picked them out and made me start over. Even if nobody could see my mistake.
By junior high I’d won my own Singer sewing machine in a national “Make It With Wool” contest, and had clothes featured in a local fashion show.
But it wasn’t prizes or compliments that made me love sewing. It was the time I shared with Mamaw in that little cottage.
“Press as you go,” I could hear her saying as I added the last pair of slacks to the give-away pile. “Every step should be perfect.” I let you down, Mamaw, I thought, didn’t I?
I reached up to the closet shelf. A box of old photographs, a carton of linens and—What’s this quilt doing up here?
Pulling it down, I recognized the star pattern in red, green and yellow cottons. Twelve stitches to an inch, just the way Mamaw worked. It was the Lone Star quilt she’d been making just before she died 35 years ago.
The memory was every bit as fresh and painful as it was the day it happened. The day my heart broke.
I was 19, just out of nursing school, working my first job at a hospital. Most of our patients were older and waiting for transfer to nursing homes. There was always something to do, administering their daily care, passing medicine. It was a big change from selling Avon to pay my way through school.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this,” I told Margie, a nurse who was a few years older than me. Margie always looked so smart in her white hat, her blond hair pulled back in a twist. Sometimes she knew what a patient needed before the doctor did.
Margie was as good a nurse as Mamaw was a seamstress. Like Mamaw, she took time to teach me how to be a good nurse too, pointing out things I’d done wrong so I could do better next time.
“Everybody feels overwhelmed at first,” she said. “But you better get ready—a new patient is asking for you. Room 449. Bed 3.”
“Mamaw!” I said when I got to the room. She had been admitted with chest pain and shortness of breath. For the next two days I took extra special care of her. The doctors determined she had congestive heart failure and tried to figure out the best treatment.
I unfolded the old Lone Star quilt. Inside was a bright red ball of binding. Mamaw had obviously planned to stitch it into the quilt. Without the binding, the quilt would never be complete. If I’d been a better nurse, she would have lived to finish it. How many times had I relived that terrible day?
That afternoon at the hospital, I was preparing a patient for surgery when another nurse hurried up to me. “Your grandmother’s in pain,” she reported. “I thought you’d want to come.”
I turned to leave, but two orderlies arrived for my surgery patient. As quickly as I could, I helped the orderlies with the patient before rushing to Mamaw’s side. Here I come, Mamaw, I thought. Just hang on.
“Roberta to room 429,” a voice announced over the PA system. “Stat.”
I patted the surgery patient’s arm and hurried down to room 429, where a patient had tripped over her slippers. She wasn’t hurt, but I had to settle her back in bed and check her vitals before I could get to Mamaw. Finally I rushed into her room—only to find it in chaos.
“Where’s that suction machine?” a nurse barked. I should have made sure one was in the room already, I thought. A doctor called out orders I didn’t understand.
“She’s a code blue,” someone said—cardiac arrest! Everything seemed to happen in slow motion while I stood in the doorway, unable to move. All my training did me no good as I watched others try to save Mamaw.
But it was no use. Mamaw died in the very hospital where I was supposed to take care of her, and I had done nothing.
After the funeral I returned to work and numbly performed my duties. Margie was at the nurse’s station, expertly juggling a stack of metal charts as I went by with a bedpan.
“Roberta,” she said in the kindly tone of voice she always used when she was going to teach me something I missed. “Maybe your granny needed Lasix in her IV. You should have asked the doctor.”
She meant to be helpful, the way she always gave me advice, but her words went straight to my heart like a knife. Lasix was a diuretic. Diuretics are used to treat congestive heart failure.
Mamaw should have been given Lasix from the moment she came here, I thought as I continued down the hall, my eyes filling with tears. That might have prevented her heart attack.
It didn’t matter how much I’d wanted to care for Mamaw. All that mattered was that I failed. This wasn’t like sewing, where I could pick out my sloppy stitches and start again. Mamaw was gone forever.
I ran my hand lovingly over her Lone Star quilt. Without Mamaw I could get no joy out of sewing.
Truth be told, though I continued nursing, got my PhD and even received a caregiver award, I couldn’t say I got much joy out of nursing either. Every time a patient thanked me for my help I remembered the help I didn’t give Mamaw.
The quilt resting in my hands almost told the whole story: Mamaw’s perfect stitches had created something beautiful that would never be finished. All because of me.
The least I could do is finish it for her. The thought of doing this one good deed for Mamaw put needle and thread in a different light.
I hunted around for thread to match the binding. In a comfy chair I spread the quilt across my lap. Working the needle through the cotton binding, I surprised myself. Sewing felt natural, peaceful, even after all this time.
When my stitches came out crooked I pulled them out and stitched again until they lined up straight and strong. What would Mamaw say to see me sewing after all these years?
The answer came to me like a picture in my mind: Mamaw in a sewing circle of angels. I had to smile as I pushed the needle through the fabric, perfectly straight, twelve to an inch. Just like Mamaw had taught me.
Nobody would notice my perfect stitches when I was finished. They would only see a beautiful quilt. But I would know the care and love on the inside, and so would Mamaw. Just like she would have known the care and love inside me that horrible day all those years ago.
Ever the good seamstress, Mamaw had always cared most of all about the things nobody could see. Why had I thought she would judge me any differently?
These stitches are for you, Mamaw, I thought. I’m so sorry I wasn’t a better nurse that day.
And as I stitched, the angels seemed to bring back a message from the heavens. “She knows. You’re forgiven.” With that my heart was mended.
Afterward I let go of the guilt I carried ever since that day. In nursing, like sewing, I’d learned from my mistakes. And with each day’s experience I became a better nurse.
Today Mamaw’s Lone Star quilt lies on my bed waiting for me each night when I get home from a long, fulfilling day at the hospital. Other sewing projects are scattered about the house. Mamaw and I are sewing together again.
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