| Sunny Side Up July 21, 2004 �2004, Kathleen Gibson Passing on the threads of faith The hum of a sewing machine sets my fingers itching. Sewing runs in my family, you see. Even my oldest uncle knew how to sew. My father showed me one of his sewing projects - a perfectly constructed brown lumber jacket. It had topstitching, snaps, pockets and lining. Harry welded for a living. A mountain man at heart, he hunted big game on horseback until a stroke felled him in his late eighties. He's a frayed shadow of his old self now.* But the threads in the jacket he made are still strong. As a young woman my mother worked for a tailor. One day a man walked into her shop and asked her to install a fly in his pants. She had no idea how to catch the fly, and where to put it when she did. Or why. Her boss had to explain it to her. She blushed when she told me that. Mom taught me to sew so well it irritated my Grade 8 home-economics teacher. She couldn't teach me anything I didn't already know. I became her unofficial teaching assistant instead. When I went to college I bought an old green Elna, just like Mom's. The Iron Horse, I called it. For my first date with the Preacher, I sewed a lime-green dress of crepe fortrel. Floor length, with a short hooded jacket and white marabou feather trim on sleeves and hood. I never finished that dress completely, but I wore it anyway. Went to the Christmas banquet held together with pins, and warned that boy that his life may be endangered if he touched me. Two years later, the Iron Horse stitched my wedding dress. Yards of white satin and lace whispered across table and floor as I added ruffle upon ruffle to my tiered Victorian gown. As the Preacher leaned to kiss me during the ceremony, I've often wondered if he worried about getting stabbed by a pin. I don't sew much anymore, but some days I go over to an old treadle machine in my kitchen and stroke its polished surface. I learned to sew on one just like it. I loved the swish of the needle, the rhythmic pumping of the pedal, the flash of the flywheel. I loved everything about sewing, once upon a time. I didn't intentionally stop sewing. It just sort of fell by the way, pushed aside by other priorities. But I'm growing hungry for the clatter of the needle. It's a sound that took root in me. I'm going to pick it up again, one day. Get out Iron Horse II and use it. I have piles of fabric, patterns galore. My forbears would be proud. All that good stuff I learned from them won't be wasted. It's like that with faith too, I've noticed. Old ways are new again. The strong thread of genuine faith keeps stitching truth, keeps beckoning back. And most prodigal children return eventually. Parents, never lose hope. Children, hurry home. *Uncle Harry died just as this column went to press. You can respond to this column at [email protected] |
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