The eldest ones said that the laughter and tears are sewn right into
the quilt,
part and parcel, stitch by stitch.
Emotions, experiences,
heartbreak, mourning, pain and regret,
stitched into the cloth,
along
with happiness, satisfaction, cheer, comfort, and love.
The finished
quilts were a living thing,
a reflection of the spirits of its
creators.
~Arlene Stafford-Wilson
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| Old denim from jeans |
I taught GED classes for almost 15 years. After a the first few years, the bulk of our students were teenage boys.* I didn't have a clue about communicating with teenage boys. I struggled. I had no training for this. But I observed my coworker, MG.
"How do you do it? How do you talk to these guys and gain their confidence?" I asked.
And she told me her secret. It mostly had to do with respect. Beyond that, I will keep her confidence. She was a private woman. And I loved her. I still love her.**
I have had many co-workers I loved, but I don't know that anyone taught me as much, or covered for me as well, or shared so many good and bad times as she.
When a student joined our class they would fill out a file with personal information. If there was something she deemed important or disconcerting, she never said a word. She just slid the file across to me. If I was busy and pushed it back, she would slide the file back. Sometimes she would open it and tap her finger on the page I needed to read. She didn't want me to "do" anything about the information. She simply wanted to make sure I saw it - that I was informed.
MG was rock solid. Nothing fazed her. And she had a wicked
sense of humor. She would get a student laughing and convince them to
disclose a tattoo or a story - sometimes both. And, even after a what
might be considered a shocking disclosure, she was a source of
unconditional acceptance.
Over the years, we learned that we could never guess or judge or "divine" which kids would be successful. Attitude, test scores, parental involvement - none of that mattered (in our program, none of those things seemed to correlated with success). Each year as classes were about to start we would give each other a pep-talk. We would commit to do all we could for every student, recognizing that not all of the students would be successful.***
We knew there would be at least one kid (and usually more) who would break our hearts, but recognized that child would be coming through our door unidentified as the "heart-breaker." We would accept them all, work with all, expect the best from all.
[It was an adventure, always. One year we had a number of "Michaels." It was a
popular name. Most of them did pretty well, but there was heartbreak with more
than one.
One year we had all the "lost boys." Many of these boys had been thrown out of
their homes for one reason or another. They were "couch-surfing" or sleeping in
their cars or worse. We decided to cook on Fridays so that we knew they had at
least one good meal during the week - beans and cornbread, chocolate cake, stew
- whatever we could think of that was filling and could be stretched to feed all.
They showed up on Fridays.
One year we had a family of boys from a group where children only complete the
8th grade. That was all the education they needed to work in the sawmill or bakery
or on the farm. But these young men decided they wanted something different, and
they worked hard to achieve it. We learned much from them.]
MG always went beyond covering the five GED subjects. She would discover a student needed some assistance with a license or medical appointment or Christmas gifts for their children and she was there - filling out forms, providing rides, and getting things done. She took that idea of "breaking down barriers" seriously.
More than one student was, for whatever reason, unable to make progress. MG was always patient and kind. She would go over the same addition and subtraction or word lists each day as if it was the first time they had seen the material. She tried every method she could to open the door for them. And she never gave up.
While we were raised in the same faith tradition, I would sometimes make a comment or discuss a concept I had that might not have been exactly
according to Rome. The "Mass bank" was one. ****
MG would look at me calmly and shake her head.
"Just keep one lightning bolt away from me when you talk like that," she would say.
She was a seamstress and a quilter. She would come up with the wildest ideas for Halloween costumes for her grandson and talk me into participating in the "creation." We would stay after class to cut the fabric and create - a St. Joseph, the bluebird of happiness, and one that we made using a balloon for the pattern. I cannot remember WHAT it was (maybe Winnie the Poo). I just remember trying to figure it out with a giant Mylar balloon, a copy machine, and felt - a lot of felt.
One day she came in and dropped a bag of denim in front of me. "
I want you to help me make my father a quilt," she said. I knew he was sick. He was gravely ill and she wanted to give him a quilt for comfort. She was a real quilter - matching corners and all - but she had seen some work I'd done in denim and decided that was what she wanted to do for her father.
We planned the quilt and cut it out in one afternoon. We sewed the top in a couple of days and she loved the old Singer sewing machine I used - a favorite of quilters.***** As she finished the top we shared "Our Lady of Guadalupe" patterned fabric found at a quilt show. It was the perfect thing to "back" the gift for her father. It seems that he had given each of his daughters a necklace and Our Lady medal.
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| Detail of La Virgen de Guadalupe |
Even though we had not worked together for years, we would still call every now and then. We talked about the success of some of our students. We shared stories of our children. She called to let me know she was to be a grandmother again. That was a day!
Our last conversations were brainstorming - one about denim (she had a request for a quilt) and another about a water leak in a dorm room.******
And then, suddenly, she was gone.
She kept her illness close. She would not have wanted to burden me or anyone.
She was my friend. She was remarkable and loving, funny and determined. She was a blessing - full of grace. And I miss her.
Epilogue
I started this memorial last August, when we lost her. I could not finish it
or think about posting it then. I tried to see her husband a number of
times, but one thing or another kept getting in the way.
He called me last week and we finally sat down for a meal. We talked
about the kids. We talked about things we were working on. We talked
about her. We both needed to talk about her. It was good to be together.
We walked out to the cars and he loaded a container of denim scraps in
my car. Some I recognized. Some I didn't. He didn't want to throw it
away.
Then he said he needed a little more room and pulled out the travel box
for a Singer Featherweight. There is a tag on the handle in her perfect
handwriting. It says, "Works great."
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| Singer Featherweight |
NOTES:
*Initially we had more single moms than anything, but then the high schools decided they could use "transferred to GED" to reduce their "drop out" rates. It doesn't work anymore, but it did for a good long time.
Figures lie and liars figure.
**She's in my head all the time, reminding me that I must "do my penance" before I can work on a project or do something fun. I ignore her now, like I did then. My house can be a mess and I will work on clay or take a trip (or whatever) and not worry about my "penance." I do it in other ways.
***Our data was all over the place. And one thing the data would tell us every year was that we weren't God. Judging was not in our job descriptions. Sometimes a student who seemed too far behind to accomplish anything would pass the test within a couple of months.
****I figured that if a Saturday evening Mass counted for Sunday, why not a
Saturday morning? Why not a Wednesday afternoon? AND, if you happened to
go to Mass more often than once in a week, you could just "bank" that
Mass to be withdrawn and used in a week when you couldn't get to Mass.
*****It was a Singer Featherweight. I learned to sew on one and had been using one for years before it was stolen out of my car. [Featherweights are, in fact, light-weight. So I would take it to "work on" different projects, including one for my ceramics professor. I just didn't take it out of the car that day and someone walking by figured it was "pawn-able" I am sure. Guess I forgot to lock the car that day.
******It is a story you do not want to hear. I can sum it up in one word - mildew.
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| She had such lovely penmanship! |
