Last Thanksgiving, my family gathered at my parents’ house to eat dinner. My aunt, uncle and cousins were present, as well as my great-grandmother Opal. She seemed very excited to hold her great great grandson Ethan. She brought a small piggy bank to give to him, as well as a very, very special blanket.
The room was quiet as she told the story of how this blanket came to be. My grandmother, my dad’s mother, had recently passed away. This blanket extremely special because she was the one who made it.
My father would have been about six or seven years old. His father, Vernon was dying of melanoma cancer at that time. My great grandmother Opal requested that my grandma Grace would make this blanket for her. My grandfather would hold the parts of the blanket that had already been finished in his lap while Grandma Grace sat at his bedside crocheting.
For the last 40 years, Opal had hung onto this blanket. She knew that someday she would give it to someone, but she never knew who. She said that when I had Ethan, she knew that Grace would have wanted me to have the blanket.
At first when I brought it home, I just draped it over my rocking chair, afraid that it would get mangled as Ethan played with it. But then, after a while, I thought. “What’s the point of having a blanket that doesn’t get the chance to be loved?”
Now, Ethan snuggles up in it every night, and even has difficulty falling to sleep without it. It reminds me daily of my grandma Grace and my great grandmother Opal.
I hope that someday Ethan can appreciate how lucky is, and how special this blanket is.