The Blanket
I am lucky to have a very talented mother. Not just talented because she’s my mom, but talented because she can anything. Her creative persona is always on high. She can knit, cortchet, she’s a graduated pastry chef, and every time I see what she can make I am amaze at the artistry in her craft. Everything is done to the best of her abilities and the highest perfection any artist could have. She has made me so many hats and scrafs and she has made my boys a couple of baby blankets.
When my sister got pregnant with her first baby almost 10 years ago, my mom made me a blanket for my future baby. It was white with green turtles and green trim. I saved that blanket until November. I was saving for my future daughter, but for my son’s surgery in November I took the blanket out and asked the nurse to keep it with him at all times (I have always loved turtles and in Chinese culture they are considered good luck and long life). This blanket was special. So on Monday I brought it with me to the hospital as baby was getting follow-up MRI (I’ve been trying to explain to friends and family that, even though he is “cancer free”, there is a 10% chance of recurrence, and we have to monitor the boy for 24 months- this period includes, MRI’s, urine test, oncologist visits, and so on). Every time he has an MRI I like him to have the blanket around because he does have to be under anesthesia. This always freaks me out.
After the hospital we had to go run some errands. It was a rainy, gloomy day. We headed to Babies R Us, the first stop in our run, I go what I needed, then we went to look for a couch, went to a couple of place and nothing, and after that decided to go to Ikea, when I’m getting together the stroller I can’t find the diaper bag. So I don’t really mind. I keep going like nothing since everything in the bag was replaceable, until I remember that the blanket was inside the diaper bag. I start crying like a little maniac, calling every place I went that day. Still today I called and nothing. No one knows, saw, or has the diaper bag. I didn’t even know how to tell my mom that I had lost the blanket. When I did she asked: “which one?” I replied with a description and she said “I have no idea what blanket that is. I don’t remember it at all”. It made me feel better for a minute, but I’m still hoping that I will call Babies R Us tomorrow or the hospital and they will have my diaper bag with the blanket in it. It might be superficial to some that this is why I’m weak. I’m an emotional mush when it comes to these things, even our couch, which we just got rid off and I cried. Because there are so many memories attached to that material object. To think my baby had the blanket during that time of pain, brings tears to my eyes, yet I realized that the most important thing is that those memories, and not the material things. It is up to me to remember and nurture those memories so that I can pass them on to my boys when they have their boys and so on. Memories are what keep us going. Making memories, living them, reliving them by passing them on and so on. So as I come to terms with the fact that I will never recuperate my turtle blanket, I enjoy the short memories I lived with it.
thegmgmommy 