My mom's hands (psst...a giveway at the end, too)

This post is a tribute to my mom, to all of our moms. I recently posted a DIY on how to turn a rugby shirt into shorts for my kid. My brother read it, and here's his comment:

Brett said...
Wow, it looks like Mom did a good job sewing those shorts. I know you'll claim them as your own, but just looking at those hands in the pictures, I remember seeing those hands playing the piano growing up. Those are Gwen's hands...ohh....are those your hands? Hmmmmmm....now I'm just confused....

I'm sure he was teasing me about my sixty-six year old hands, but I am choosing to ignore that part and focus on the positive. That I am like my mother.

It's weird, isn't it? That your mom was someone you didn't even meet until they were grown?

I didn't know this little girl, I didn't meet her for another twenty six years. This little girl is three years, nine months old according to the writing on the back of the photo. This was taken around the time her daddy went off to fight in the Korean War and her baby brother, Steven, died after only three days with his mommy. Just writing that last part made me cry for my grandma again.

These pictures were taken at her grandpa Fred's house on Easter Sunday. The back of the picture says she "has her mother's wedding hat and slippers on also her mother's purse." {original punctuation, or lack thereof, included}


And now she's seven years old. Look at that face! I can tell just from looking at it that her mom made her dress, complete with the fancy gold buttons on the pockets. I bet she borrowed the necklace from her mom, too.


I remember how her mom used to have a rack of necklaces hanging in her closet. There must have been hundreds of them.

She grew up, that little girl. She went off to college in a Studebaker, painted pink by her dad, especially for her.

She was in a sorority and she majored in music education. Her grand scheme was to have a gaggle of kids that she could have sit at the piano for hours on end each weekend, plunking away with little hope of ever becoming a concert pianist. Only one of us got a great singing voice like hers, and he doesn't really use it unless he's hiding his American Idol hopes behind his career as a CFO for an aerospace company. I for one can still play Fur Elise, I'll have you know.

I met her in the early seventies. I thought she was the prettiest woman on earth, I still do. There's just something about your mom that's captivating, isn't it? I also thought she knew everything. To be fair, she knew a lot (she was trained by another one of the most talented women on the planet, my Grandma Clare). But one day, when I was eighteen, I found out she didn't know where to add oil to her car's engine! I was crushed. And then I showed her where to add oil, so she was back to knowing how to do everything again. Whew.

So I bet you're thinking, long about now, what in the hell is this post about, Heather?

Thanks for your patience, kind reader. Mother's Day is around the corner. I think it would be great if every blogger and non-blogger out there paid some sort of tribute to a woman in their life that they hold dear. Maybe it's your mom or your grandma. Maybe it's your sister. Maybe it's you, and motherhood has changed you in ways you never saw coming.

Either way, write a little post on your blog for that girl. It's not mandatory or nothing, just an idea.

And leave a comment here, and you'll automatically be entered to win a custom a-line skirt, a la Heatherty Featherty! That's right, for your reading patience today I'm rewarding one lucky reader with the Great Mother's Day Giveaway! You could keep it for yourself or get it for your mom. Whatever.

Why a custom skirt as the prize? Because of all the things I've learned in my life, sewing is the one thing that has really tied me to my mom and my grandma before her. I spent so many nights in the sewing room with my mom, learning how to pay attention to the details I didn't want to learn, how to finish a project nicely instead of sloppily. I'm still working on that one. She taught me everything I know about sewing, and this is my tribute to her.

Either way, leave a comment by Friday night at midnight on this post, and you're entered to win! I'll announce the lucky winner on Saturday morning. If you're commenting anonymously, you'll have to at least leave your initials so I know who to congratulate.

Good luck, and I can't wait to read some stories about ladies in your life. And this will prolly be my last giveaway for a while, so get it while you can, y'know?

- H