Little Mama’s Quilt

A favorite part of my childhood was the visits to my mother’s parents. And, the best part about those visits were my quiet time with my grandmother, Little Mama. My grandfather, Little Papa, had a bad back and required a firm mattress. My grandmother preferred a soft mattress. So, they slept in two different beds and in two different rooms.

Papa had a bed in the “front” room which also happened to be the living room. Little Mama’s bedroom was just behind the front room and was large enough for two full-size beds and a twin bed. Can you guess who I got to sleep with when we visited? Right…my Little Mama.

During the summer I would lie beside her and listen to her gentle snoring and the cars as they zoomed by out on the two-lane highway. The cars and trucks were on their way to someplace else. I remember hearing the crickets chirping and the croaking of the frogs. I would lie there and let them serenade me with the same songs that soothed my mother when she was a child.

But the winter – ah, in the winter when my Little Mama wasn’t as tired from a day’s work, we would sink down into her feather bed covered with piles of quilts – one that I remember was a Bow-Tie quilt. We would whisper and giggle as though we were both little girls. She would share her life with me.

One night, under that pile of quilts, the three of us were just getting quiet. Oh, I forgot to introduce you to our third girlfriend, my baby doll Betsy. On this night, my Little Mama told me about her last baby girl. The tiny one that didn’t breathe but just a few breaths. The wee one that still rested on her heart in the still of the night. The baby who was no bigger than the tiny baby doll I held in my arms on that night and that baby doll that I still have.

Where did the years go? Why did they have to go by so quickly? I grew up. Little Mama aged. I married. She died. I had a baby boy.

I had a baby boy who needed a quilt of his own. I didn’t have a pattern, but I remembered what that Bow-Tie quilt looked like. So, I drafted my own pattern and made a quilt for my son. A quilt that reminded me of my Little Mama and the wonderful times we had in that feather bed snuggled under all those quilts.

One day just a few years ago, my mother told me she had an old quilt of her mother’s, my Little Mama. Mother asked me if I would like to have it. What a silly question, of course I would like to have it. Mother opened her quilt box and dug down through the layers of quilts and lace tablecloths and produced from the bottom of the box an old, worn quilt…an old, worn Bow-Tie quilt…that very same beautiful, memorable Bow-Tie quilt.

Sherry Ray

KeepYouInStitches

New Bow Tie Quilt Old Bow Tie Quilt