The Quilt Read online

The Quilt

  Timothy Paterson

  Copyright Timothy Paterson

  Vanessa was not too fond of speaking in public, but she needed another elective and her roommate, Sandy talked her into taking a speech class with her.

  It was Vanessa’s first semester of college and her first time away from home. Her parents were only a hundred miles away from the university, but it may as well have been a thousand. Vanessa lived in a dorm on campus and only saw her parents on weekends.

  Midway through the semester, the communications professor gave the class a rather odd assignment. Each student was to give a speech describing the best or worst gift he or she had ever received in their lives and explain their reasons for their answer.

  As she sat in her dorm room, Vanessa wrote the rough draft for her speech. The more she wrote, the more homesick she became. She became overwhelmed with a flood of emotions. Before she was finished, Vanessa had to stop and call home. Vanessa and her mother talked for over an hour and both of them shed many tears during their conversation.

  After Vanessa hung up the phone, she worked on her speech for another hour before going to bed. The next evening, she wrote the second draft of the speech and the next day, she wrote the final draft.

  At the next communications class, the students were asked to read their papers to the rest of the class. The students selected pieces of paper to see what order they would read their papers. Vanessa picked the number ten.

  As Vanessa listened to the first nine students give their speeches, Vanessa noticed that they were nervous and she began to get nervous as well.

  Finally, it was Vanessa’s turn to speak. She picked up a large box and proceeded to the front of the classroom. She set the box down on the table and set some note cards on the podium. She really did not need the cards, as she had the speech memorized, but they were there in case she got too nervous and forgot something.

  Vanessa took a drink of water and when the students were quiet, she began:

  “The worst gift that I ever received was the gift that my mother gave me when I graduated from high school.”

  “Maybe I was just being naïve, but I was expecting some spectacular gift to mark this momentous occasion. After all, I had just completed thirteen years of hard work. I thought I might get a new car, or at least a used car of my very own, or a substantial amount of cash, or an expensive piece of jewelry.”

  “But, instead of any of those things, my mother gave me this box”

  The rest of the class craned their necks with curiosity to get a better look as Vanessa opened the box and removed a folded quilt.

  Then, Vanessa continued; “When I first saw this quilt, my first thought was that the real present was wrapped up in the quilt. As I carefully opened the quilt, I became quickly disappointed as I discovered that there was nothing hidden within its folds.”

  “I made a quick assessment of the quilt. I noticed that it was handmade and that there was no distinct pattern. Very few of the pieces were straight, and the stitching was uneven throughout the quilt.”

  “I quickly folded up the quilt and put it back in the box. I asked my mother if the quilt was my only gift. My mother’s smile quickly turned into a frown, as she replied that it was indeed the only gift she had for me,”

  “I saw that my mother was upset with my reaction, but I didn’t care, because I was very upset and disappointed myself. I took the box to my room and threw it in the corner of my closet. “

  “Over the next several days, my mother and I didn’t say much to each other. That quilt had begun to drive a wedge between the two of us.”

  “My dad tried everything he could think of, to get Mom and me to talk out our differences, but we were both too stubborn to listen to him.”

  “A couple of weeks after graduation, the weather turned cool, which was not unusual for Northern Minnesota, even though it was early June.

  “One morning about three o’clock, I woke up shivering. The sheet and thin blanket on my bed were not keeping me warm enough. Suddenly, I thought about that quilt in the closet. I ran from my bed to the closet, grabbed the quilt and then ran back into my bed, and wrapped the quilt around me, clear up to my neck.”

  “As I began warming up, I noticed that part of the quilt had a familiar feel to it. I turned on my bedside lamp, so that I could examine the quilt more closely.”

  “The instant I looked at that quilt square, I realized why it felt so familiar. It was part of my old blankie that I carried around when I was a small child.”

  As Vanessa said that, she showed the class the quilt square that she was talking about, and then she continued.

  That blankie brought me much comfort for the first five years of my life. I never let it out of my sight, except when my mother washed it and then, I would grab it as soon as she took it out of the dryer.”

  “As I began looking at the rest of the quilt more closely, I noticed that each piece of the quilt was somehow connected to my life.”

  As Vanessa continued her speech, she pointed to various pieces of the speech and holding it up for the class to see.

  “This piece is part of the blanket that I was wrapped in, when I was brought home from the hospital. This one is part of a housecoat that my great grandmother used to wear all of the time. I spent hundreds of hours sitting in Nana’s lap while she read stories to me.”

  “This piece is part of a dress that Nana made for me when I was seven years old. Two months later, Nana died at the age of eighty-nine years old. I insisted on wearing it to Nana’s funeral. My mother thought that it would make me too sad, but I told her that it would make Nana happy when she looked down from Heaven and saw me wearing it.”

  “This piece is from my dad’s favorite shirt. It was his football jersey from when he was in college. He always wore it when he and I played football in our front yard. Over the years, the shirt became stained with mud, grass and sweat. When I was eight years old, Mom made him get rid of the shirt. I was just as upset as he was.”

  “This piece, with the number twelve on it, is from my little league uniform when I was ten. There is a date stitched on this piece of quilt. That was the day that I scored the winning run, and the pitcher on our team, Tommy Johnson, gave me my first kiss.”

  “This piece is from the patched knee of my favorite pair of jeans I wore when I was eleven. I was wearing them the day that I fell out of our big oak tree.”

  “Mom had forbidden me to climb the tree, because she said it was too dangerous, which made me want to climb it even more. When I fell out of the tree, I was sure that my mom would kill me. Instead, she ran over to me and after seeing that I had not broken any bones, she held me in her arms for several minutes until I calmed down and stopped crying. I do not know who was more scared, her or me. She never scolded me, and I never climbed that tree again.”

  “Mom knew that they were my favorite jeans and she carefully sewed up the tear and patched them.”

  “This piece was part of a fancy blouse that my mom bought me when I was thirteen. It was the day I became a woman. I was so embarrassed, confused and scared. My mom explained everything that was happening to me.”

  “Mom and I spent the entire day together, just the two of us. She called the school and told them that I would not be at school that day, and then she did something that she never did; she called in sick at her job. We went shopping that morning, and ate a picnic lunch in the park where we had a long woman to woman talk.”

  “After lunch, we went to a fancy boutique and Mom told me to pick out a blouse that I really loved. I spotted one that was the most beautiful one I had ever seen. I looked at the price and when I saw how expe
nsive it was, I quickly started looking at other ones. My mom had seen the look of excitement in my eyes and she insisted we get that one. I told her that she couldn’t afford it, but she insisted. She must have talked to Dad, because he never said anything when he saw the bill. My mom and I became much closer that day.”

  “Every time I wore that blouse, it reminded me of that special day and it made me feel really special and important.”

  “This piece of quilt is from a pair of pajamas I had when I was fifteen. I was wearing them the evening after my boy friend of eight months dumped me for my best friend or should I say, my ex-best friend. I told my parents that it was no big deal, but my dad knew otherwise.”

  “That evening, he made some popcorn for just the two of us, and we sat on the couch watching old movies. He waited patiently for me to open up and when I did, the floodgates opened and the tears would not stop. Dad was crying along side of me. He couldn’t bear to see me hurting so much.”

  “We talked most of the night and Dad told me it was okay to be upset, but that it was the boy’s loss and that I could do much better. He built up my self-confidence and made me feel good about myself. By the time we finished talking, we were laughing.”

  At this point in her speech, Vanessa had to stop and wipe her eyes, which had misted up, and then she continued.

  “This piece is from the uniform shirt from my first job, at McDonalds®, where I started working at age sixteen. I worked my way up from fries to assistant manager. This last piece of fabric was added to the quilt after graduation. It is a piece of fabric from my graduation gown. I bet the school never realized that it was four inches shorter when I returned it.”

  “The rest of these pieces of quilt also have special meaning to me as well as my mother. They came from clothing from my first eighteen years of life, from old gym uniforms, swim suits, prom and homecoming dresses, and many others as well.”

  “The entire quilt is stitched with blue and gold thread, my high school colors. Most of the quilt pieces have dates stitched into them to record the defining moments in my life. My mother never owned a sewing machine. She sewed the entire quilt by hand, which took her several months, staying up late at night after I had gone to bed. My mom also has severe arthritis, so I know that it must have caused her much pain to make this special gift for me.”

  “The next morning, when my mother woke me up, I hugged her and through my tears, I apologized for the way I had behaved and I thanked her for this special gift.”

  “The gift that I thought was the worst gift ever, turned out to be the most valuable gift that I had ever received, because it was crafted with a mother’s love for her daughter. My mom had been saving pieces of my childhood for eighteen years and she connected them all together to create a historical work of art. I shall treasure it always.”

  Vanessa was barely able to finish her speech, as tears were pouring down her cheeks. She was not the only one crying; however, as several students were also crying as they applauded at the end of the speech.

  The professor smiled, wiped her eyes as she gave Vanessa an ‘A’ on her speech.

 

  The End