This photo is of a quilt my mother made from the handkerchiefs that my grandmother carried to church every Sunday. She made most of the handkerchiefs, cutting them from linen and clothes, and embroidering small images and tatting lace around the edges. When my mother made the quilt, it combined the sewing skills of two generations, passing to me and my brother a legacy of creativity.

And faith.

Ila Waldrop seldom missed a Sunday at church, except in the deepest of winters. A good Southern Baptist, she missed her faith home when she moved in with my parents, and when she died, we took her back to that church in Ashville, Alabama, to have her final service. Likewise, when my father died, my mother returned to the Southern Baptist faith of her youth.

Now…I’ve tried my hand at sewing and embroidery. I’m pretty lousy at both. I reattach buttons with safety pins. I have more than one hem secured with duct tape. I can produce a good cross-stitch piece, but my creativity lies in another direction. Words.

The faith, however, lingers. I’m not a Southern Baptist, but I grew up with that faith heritage, which made it supremely possible for me to work on the first Woman’s Study Bible with Dorothy Patterson (back in 1995). And while I refer to myself as a “Patchwork Protestant,” I’m more Wesley than Calvin, with a faith grounded in the study of Greek, translation dynamics, and historical context.

It is a faith I hope to pass on with my words. With my fiction, with my devotionals, with my editing of other people’s words. And, on rare occasion, with my poetry.

I read the following poem at my grandmother’s funeral, which happened when my sister-in-law was pregnant. I meant every word.

And, yes, I wrote it.

—————-

Passage

She was so strong
and proud in a soft, submissive way
of her life and its achievements.
The thousands of biscuits baked—
three dozen every morning for her husband and their kin,
readying them for the fields and the morning sun—
The hundreds of garments sewn, washed, and ironed—
her mother had died when she was eleven,
and she was mother to her brothers and sisters until they died,
or left her.
I listened and reveled in her stories and her laughter,
living in a world I would never know
except through her.
Then
the laughter and the pride began to fade,
leaving only the memories, which became
more real than the present.
And
I lost her.
The gallant spirit chained to an earthly body,
which could not withstand the
slow but strong erosion of time.
And I wait for her freedom
as I watch
My sister grow large with a newer earthly
body, whose shape will give form to a
bright spirit, which will be filled with
Laughter, pride,
and memories to share.