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The 50-year-old Baby Blanket
September Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Comfort”
Soothing baby to a grieving daughter.
My mother’s mother made this baby blanket nearly 50 years ago. The birth of a granddaughter is normally a joyful experience. But my birth was not greeted with open arms by all of my mother’s family members, at least not at the start.
I was not expected. Some would say a mistake by two adults, but that’s a whole different story. A complicated one.
She was considered “the black sheep” of her conservative Catholic family, welcoming a child out of wedlock with the father nowhere in sight. Judgment loomed over my birth and those early years that I was not aware of until later in my life.
I don’t remember using this baby blanket, of course. All I know was my mom used it when she read in bed. As an avid reader, she would scrunch it up into a ball and use it to hold whatever hardcover book she was reading.
It was really her blanket, made by her mother for her child.
It’s been almost thirteen years since she passed unexpectantly. On the day I went to her apartment to pack up her things, I ran straight to her bedroom, looking for this blanket. I prayed it was still there on her bed where it normally would be.
It wasn’t. I panicked, looking all over her room, finally finding it under a pile of clothes.
This blanket was once used to comfort me as a newborn baby by a grandmother who may have been at first disappointed by my mother but welcomed me as only a grandmother could.
For the first year after her death, I was in shock, trying to adapt to life without my best friend. As I was trying to raise my babies (then 3 and 1–1/2 years old), I struggled mentally. I cling to this blanket like a life preserver in a rough sea.
And now I use it in bed as I read. My grandmother sure did know how to make a strong baby blanket and the most comforting soul I’ve ever known.
On October 20th of this year, she would have turned 80 years old. 💖
Some of my fave 6-word photo story writers
Mary Chang Story Writer, Penny Grubb, Sandi Parsons, pockett dessert, K. Barrett, Kim Zuch, Susan Alison, Sandi Parsons, Diana Lotti, B.R. Shenoy, David Acaster, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Kris Bedenian, Ian Hanson, Randy Runtsch, Barb Dalton 🇺🇦, JoAnn Ryan, L Burton, Kim McKinney, Denise Darby, Dunelair, Jillian Amatt — Artistic Voyages
