Starrs Aboard

I stacked up the afghans and quilts today.

The pile is almost 30 inches tall.

For perspective, I don’t think I have a cupboard in the entire RV that’s 30 inches tall.

So, we have a problem.

My family has always been crafty. There are crocheters and sewers and quilters among us, and Ed’s family was the same way. Which means that over the years, we have accumulated a lot of things made with yarn, fabric, crochet hooks and needles.

Every single one of them comes with a story.

I can still remember one Christmas at my grandmother’s house when I was frantically trying to finish an afghan I was making for my dad. I was probably 12 years old, and I was going to see him that night.

I don’t remember how long it took me to make it. I don’t remember why I was still making it on Christmas day or whether I thought I’d ever get the thing finished in time.

But I remember making it for him.

Eight years ago, after my dad died, I was going through his house.

And there it was.

That afghan.

He had kept it all those years.

Suddenly, it wasn’t just yarn anymore.

And that’s the problem with this pile.

I have afghans I made for my parents. I have an afghan my mother-in-law made for me. We have afghans Ed’s mom and aunt made for him. We have quilts from both of our daughters. I have a throw my aunt sent me when my father died.

Every one of them is tied to a person, a time or a memory.

Right now, they hang on a quilt rack that Ed made.

And somehow, we actually use them all. I’ll grab one when I’m cold, pull one off the rack to curl up on the couch, or put one over my legs while I’m watching TV.

But every time I take one down, I know exactly where it came from.

Who made it.

Who it was made for.

Why it matters.

Today, I took them all off that rack and stacked them together because we’re supposed to be figuring out what goes with us when we move into Starrs Aboard.

Thirty inches.

That’s a lot of memories to fit into an RV.

And they can’t all come with us.

So which ones do I let go?

That’s where this whole downsizing adventure gets harder than deciding whether I really need six spatulas.

You can’t really sell these.

Well, I suppose you could. To someone else, they’re perfectly good blankets. Some are beautiful. Some are warmer than others, some are soft and cozy…

But to a stranger, that’s all they are.

Blankets.

They don’t know whose hands held the crochet hook.

They don’t know that a 12-year-old girl sat at her grandmother’s house frantically trying to finish one before she saw her dad that night.

They don’t know that he kept it for the rest of his life.

They don’t know which grandmother made which afghan, or which daughter made which quilt.

The value isn’t in the yarn or the fabric.

It’s in everything woven into it.

I even had the thought that some of the crocheted afghans could be taken apart and the yarn reused.

Technically, that makes perfect sense.

Practically?

The thought of someone pulling on that yarn and watching all those hours of work slowly unravel makes my heart ache.

Which is ridiculous.

It’s yarn.

Except it isn’t.

I thought maybe we could replace the quilt on the bed in Starrs Aboard with one of these. That would be a solution for at least one.

Nope.

None of them are big enough.

Of course they’re not.

So today I stood there looking at this nearly 30-inch-tall pile of yarn and fabric and people who aren’t here anymore and people who are and Christmases and daughters and mothers and aunts and one little girl trying desperately to finish her dad’s Christmas present.

And I couldn’t decide.

So I put them all back on the quilt rack.

Maybe tomorrow.

Or maybe not tomorrow.

Some things are going to take a little longer.