Judith’s Garment Story
An easy-wear pair of daytime pants were in order. I kept on wearing my pyjama pants – a waistband with a button wasn’t going to work when all of my faculties were engaged in keeping myself together.
Maybe these are comfort pants
Saying goodbye is hard, even when there was physical distance and a language barrier between us.
Are these goodbye pants? Even when parting means long-awaited relief from age and frailty?
He was steadiness and kindness, a creative force. His character was forged as a late teen in the war-torn Netherlands, and did he ever keep the lessons learned close. Cherishing what really matters, loving quietly and steadily, strong faith. Maker in wood, and even in stitches at times. I can’t even measure his impact on my family life, but saying goodbye made it glimmer around me a little more as if highlighted by his absence. He had this way of joking dryly, with a twinkle in his eye.
Maybe these are grateful pants
On a particularly tough day for me a few years back, we were talking on the phone – he, my Dad, and me, and he said something that I could tell was hard-won and time-tested wisdom. “One stitch at a time, and at the end of the year you’ll have something you can wear.”
Maybe these are hopeful pants
Hearing of someone’s passing, even when expected, is a gut punch. Later that day, in the haze of processing and also apparently functioning still as parent and partner, I found myself in a thrift store, holding a tablecloth pressed into my arms by my husband. “These are your colours, maybe you can make something.”
These are kindness pants. Being known pants
That weekend, a slow making gave me space to think and remember. Hiss of steam iron, schloop schloop of razor sharp scissors through fabric, hum of sewing machine serving as melody, drip of salty tear on fabric adding percussion.
Sad pants.
Honouring a life of creativity and service.
Tribute pants.
Plaid tablecloth, easy-fitting, comfort-giving, reminder of past and hope for future pants.
These are joyful pants.
Thanks for this blog! Very relatable. I was cross stitching a towel during the process of my father’s illness (chemo therapy), and he passed away a few months ago. The towel is now almost finished. I didn’t know if I wanted to use it or even see it any more. But this blog might change my mind. It will always remind me of my dad. Thanks for sharing your story.