* The Memory Weaver

Where are they, those little tiny pieces, those moments in time, those snipits.  Find the threads, the scattered scraps, the left overs.  Gather them together.  Don't let them go. Go to your loom and weave the memories.  They are important and your stories need to be told.

I struggle to remember my Granny.  Small snipits, little bits, smidgens, threads.  I find them, I cherish them, I weave them together into the fabric they once were.

"Wash together, dry together, be good friends for ever and ever."  We stand by the old white double porcelain sink in the house where I was born.  Home.  The view from the window is an old log cabin, once a new soddy, now tumbled down and used for the storage of grain.  A huge wood pile is stacked near by.  This was my Granny's first home.  This is where my Papa was born.  She and Grandad built it together, one log at a time.  

I hear the water swirling down the drain.  I dry the last piece of silver ware and together, like a well orchestrated team, we fold the dish towel neatly and hang it in the cupboard under the sink.  This was our nightly routine, Granny and me.  Sometimes we would sing "You are my sunshine".  I would giggle, Granny would smile.

Sometimes Granny would read to me from the pink floral chair in the corner of her bedroom.  I would sit on the floor and lean my arms on her knees while she read me tall exciting tales from one of my favorite books. 

I loved my Granny's bedroom.  It was the largest of our five bedrooms.  Full of light, it was an airy room with big windows covering two walls and built in bookshelves.  How I adored those little nooks full of books I had no idea about. 

The windows looked out over the land.  Family land, Parker land.  The plum trees which grew close to the porch, and farther away, the high poplars which protected the yard from prairie winds.  The other window looked out over a seasonal pond, full of ducks and frogs in the spring.  Our springtime orchestra, Mama used to say as she tucked me into bed.  Beyond the music we looked out over the pasture where fat cattle grazed.

Granny's bed fascinated me.  Made of dark wood the headboard had a piece of burled walnut set in the middle.  And my very favorite thing in Granny's room - her butterfly quilt.  All bright beautiful butterflies appliqued onto muslin by hand.  Always there, always beautiful, always on her bed.

Granny used to mash my potatoes when we ate dinner.  It was a big deal.  I loved it.  Thinking back now, perhaps it was when I came home from the hospital and she was trying to get me to eat.  Mashed on my plate, patted into a square or a circle, whichever I wanted.  Butter was then applied before they were cut into bite sized squares.  She would feed each little square to me on a fork.  It made me laugh.  I remember.

Granny died one day when I was five.  She died in the bathroom while my Papa raised her head and put brandy to her lips.  She was gone.  I cried and cried that night.  I sat in a corner of the dining room on a red hassock with my feet on the old wrought iron heating grate I loved so much.  I stared down at the intricate pattern as Mama and Papa carried my Granny to lie on her butterfly quilt.  She had flown away just like a butterfly.  In silence she had invisibly transformed.

I sat at my Mama's knee by Granny's pink flowered chair and cried.  My Mama cried too.  Our tears fell for a long time.

Friends and neighbours, the women of the community fussed around, preparing Granny for something.  I wasn't quite sure what.  They put a long strip of muslin under her chin and tied it in a bow on the top of her head.  She wore her pretty flowered dress, the one I loved the best, long black stockings and her sturdy black shoes with laces.