Every Sunday afternoon, our family visited Grandpa Anderson who lived alone. The adults would sit and talk while my brother and I looked at books. On the table next to Grandpa’s chair was a large round wicker basket with a pattern of blue and green beads on the lid. It was Gramma Anderson’s sewing basket.
Inside were spools of thread in a neat circle along with many pin cushions and thimbles. Plus a tiny pair of scissors that didn’t fit my fingers. “Your grandmother earned a living as a seamstress,” my father liked say. “She made waistcoats when she was a widow with two sons. Before she met my dad.”
Her sewing basket was all I knew of Gramma Anderson who died when I was two years old. I never questioned why the basket was still on the table. Whatever the world presents is normal when you’re a child.
Now, all these years later, I understand why Grandpa kept the sewing basket nearby. It was a comfort, a hope that his wife might be coming into the room at any moment to take up a piece of mending.
I only wish that beautiful basket had survived so that I could have it on my table.