One is a large plaid pattern of soft pinks and blues with light orange here and there. The other is sky blue with small pink rosettes surrounded by tiny green leaves. They belonged to my short, chubby great grandmother, AKA Mammaw.
I sat in my office and decided to finally sew the rips under the arms of each said MooMoo. I'm not so sure how they got that way. They have been stored away for the most part over the last 20 years. I'm not even that sure how they came into my possession. I likely took them from my Mom when I moved out right after high school.
While sewing, I remembered that it was Mammaw who gave me my first sewing lesson. I couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old. I remember how nimbly her fingers moved the needle, stitching anything she pleased. It seemed so impossible that she could manage her green thimble, needle, and fabric with such short, chubby fingers. She was that awesome kind of grandmother-full of wisdom and skill in this little body which reminded me of dumplings dressed always in a MooMoo (or house dress for those of you not familiar with the term). I remember how you could see the veins in her legs and arms. She died when I was 11, and I still remember touching her arm in the casket and how unexpectedly cold she was. "Like frozen hamburger meat" was all I could think.
I still don't know how she packed all of that love and influence in the short amount of time I had her in my life. I can even recall a song she would sing to me and how it felt when she held me so tightly that I didn't think there could possibly be anyone in the world who loved me more except maybe my Nana (her daughter).
It gets harder the older you get when you realize that the kind of love you felt with parents and grandparents will soon only be memories from long ago that no one will likely be able to relate with you about. But, I know that because I was loved like that, I can pass it along. And the seemingly insignificant and even ugly things like MooMoos can serve as pleasant reminders of how blessed you were to be loved and cared about.
