Gratitude Practice 2020 Day 194: My Grandma's Prayers and Her Handmade Quilts

The average temperature in Salt Lake City in August is approximately flesh melting hot degrees Fahrenheit. If you are a numbers person that translates to a steady 99 to 100+ degrees on the regular. Way too toasty for my comfort and just plain blech. Most of the year the fact that this city that I love is actually a carefully grown up desert in disguise it lost on me...except every August when this truth is unavoidable. It's just plain hot...but at least it's a dry hot because a wet moist sticky humid hot actually puts me in the hospital as this desert born girl is just not built for that climate. Don’t worry...the princess in me strategically moves from one air conditioned structure to another as fast as I can and I do have so much to be grateful for with so many creature comforts at my pampered disposal. And so with this heat...this week...this month...this year...when just so much is literally on fire and it seems that the temperatures, both actual and metaphorical, are rising at record levels...Why am I drawn with what seems like cosmic level magnetism to a collection of warm fluffy blankets lovingly made and gifted to me and my family by my maternal grandmother? Blankets? Quilts? Seriously? It’s 900 degrees outside? So, why with these rising temperatures am I continually curling up with one of these fabric treasures? And then I remember...oh yeah...because these quilts are full of magical grandma juju….and it seems like this whole wide world could benefit from a heaping dose of magical grandma juju.

Emily Smith Parker was both a simple and extremely complicated woman (insert the phrase about apples not falling too far from trees here) and she loved me deeply. As a sassy opinionated farm girl raised on the poor side of a Mormon polygamy family, she fled her small town roots with her one true love, my grandma, and together they carved out a happy life in the big capital city. She raised two kids in a humble home in the Sugarhouse neighborhood of Salt Lake City where my grandfather worked his way from a warehouse sweeper to a purchasing manager at the historic Salt Lake Hardware for a celebrated forty plus year career. This homegrown, hardworking, hard as nails couple scrimped and saved and created a loving yet humble life. She cooked from scratch daily collecting recipes to perfect simple yet nutritious meals. They played card games weekly with neighbors who became lifelong friends for decades. She served in her church, cared for both her aged mother and her aged mother-in-law's and welcomed family and friends far and near into their home for a home cooked meal, a soft warm bed and a thoughtful listening ear whenever it was needed. Their door was always open. There was always room at their table. They shared what they had with all who needed it and somehow always with perfect timing. She rocked a colorful house coat and a simple string of beads around her neck with the tempered balance of class and grace of any woman born in 1910. A small box of white Tic Tac's were always carefully tucked inside her sensible handbag and distributed whenever needed. She gracefully plowed through her fair share of grief and gratitude; delight and depression; joy and joylessness; bliss and burden. She was firm and fun and loving and moody and she created an endless safe place for me throughout a very challenging childhood. And for as long as I can remember she was always working on one sewing project or another. Always patching swaths of fabric scraps together to make handmade treasure or apron or sundress or quilt. But I think the quilts and blankets must have been her favorite project and boy am I grateful.

My grandmother was my safe place. Her home was a haven. And I have endless happy childhood memories playing under a quilt stretched firmly across her faithful wooden quilt frames that remained set up in their humble living room more often than not. Laying on my back, I would watch her skillful knotted hand push and pull a needle laced with thread or string or yarn up and down...in and out...each square and every few inches carefully stitching and her love strategically securing merging melding one layers of fabric and batting and material to the next. She thoughtfully selected the color and pallet and theme of each project and more often than not they all contained a flower print textile. This process seemed sacred and practical and routine and decades later it is clear that this fabric alchemy successfully captured and preserved her loving magic for both me and for my whole family. Each project was intentional. Each pattern and combination carefully considered and organized and ordered. And each time the intended purpose or the person receiving the quilt was never mentioned or shared during its creation as it just was not an important detail to discuss with her eager, pesky and endlessly curious granddaughter. BUT, when it was your birthday or even better on Christmas morning when a larger than normal box carefully wrapped up in paper and ribbon had your name on it...you just knew even before you opened it that a quilt made with grandma’s love would be yours.

These quilts. These gifts. The hours and time and love that my grandmother carefully stitched into each of these blankets has provided a much needed and much appreciated manifestation of her love and life. Each quilt is absolutely laced with magically grandmother juju as they continue to provide and extend her confidence, her faith, her safety, her support and the comfort that literally held me together as a kid. These magical blankets somehow provide the right amount of warmth and support and no less than two of them live on my bed all year long. My gratitude for her kindness is bone deep. My gratitude for her vision of me, for her keen sense of protection and perception of my needs, and her willingness to gently fill gaps with love is nothing short of remarkable. The reality of the quote by Lalah Delia “Your Grandmothers’ prayers are still protecting you” is manifested so clearly in these silly blankets. I remember wondering in my angsty teen years how many blankets were actually needed by one family because her production cycle did seem a bit excessive. But now I see and appreciate her wisdom. She created to meet both the current need and the potential need of her posterity for which I am surely a grateful benefactor as these quilts live in almost every room of our home.

A well read fourth grader could easily puzzle together that the actual temperature outside has zero correlation to my constant need to seek out these blankets. But it’s all about the metaphorical changes in temperature that are causing me to wrap myself up in the known, in a warm sense of safety and protection and predictability and home that everyone on this planet is craving right now. My sweet Grandmother passed away almost 20 years ago. Her home, our family home, has been cleaned out, sold and is now being enjoyed by a new family. The natural cycle of life and generations marching forward is happening inside our family like it naturally should. It appears that with each passing week, I am convinced that my sweet Grandma made blanket after quilt after blanket because she somehow just knew that we would need them. I am beyond grateful for these silly sacred quilts that remind me of not just her but of her belief and love for me. These quilts protect. These quilts cover. These quilts anchor picnics and transform into forts for her firecracker great great granddaughter on a weekly basis. These quilts, like her lifelong earnest prayers, continue to provide a much needed sense of comfort even and especially during the hottest of times of life. Today, my gratitude is absolutely these generational reminders of her love, for her prayers and for her practical way ensuring her safety could extend for generations to come.