Family ties

A couple of months ago, I sat down beside my grandmother who was crocheting an afghan that she has been making for the past seven months. It was one of the most beautiful afghans 1 have ever seen her make. My grandmother has been making afghans for decades.

She makes and collects afghans not only becatise of their beaut}. but because of their history and what slie imagines their histor) to he for the people she makes them for. She has one lying on her couch that she made out of left-over yarn.

In one corner. there is a face of a clown and the initials J.C. in blue embroidery and rn the other, a brown horse done in crewe work. When I looked at it. I saw a woman, building it bit by bit and block by block. I sat there listening to her talk about herself and her accomplishments. her disappointments. her children and her grandchildren, and most of all, her life-long dreams.

There is one kind of afghan she calls the family afghan, which emblems our family tree. This is the essential thread that has so often kept the pieces of her own life together, and from time to time kept her from falling apart.

Even though our family is spread out all across the country, this afghan gives her the sense of security. Even though we are not all physically together, we will always be together in each other's hearts. After all, family is forever.

Sometimes I imagine my family in these pieces of bright yarn. The checkered block represents my brother, who lives down South. He called today to ask me about school and to tell me about his new job.

The bits of deep purple represent my cousin, Kelly, who is about to have her first child in the next couple of months. The ed patch represents my uncle Sam, who has just moved into his wonderful new home. And all throughout the afghan there is a chain linking all of the patterns together and that chain represents my grandmother. I do not get to see my grandmother as often as I would like to. but she makes sure she calls me at least once a month. "Where were you?" she says if she gets my machine, and "Where were you?" I say if I get hers. And when we find one another we move on to gossip and news, soul-searching and support. I can tell her anything. and so can she, but most of the time we do not have to. Most of the time we already know everything we need to know.

I remember my aunt Linda, her be ·t friend Rachel, my grandmother and my greatgrandmother conversing with each other.

I remember as a child, seeing those women in conversation with one another. It was like seeing an iceberg. kno\\-ing that so much was going on, had gone on beneath the surface of that moment, and the years. tears and confidences they had once shared with one another.

Back in the 1970s. my grandmother made my father a Philadelphia Flyers afghan that had the Flyers insignia in black and the rest of the blocks in orange with Bobby Clarke's jersey number in the four corners. One night, my father's friend from work came over to the house and saw it lying on the couch. He fell in love with it the minute he saw it.

This man offered my grandmother $200 for her to make him one, but she said no because it was an original afghan that she only wanted my father to have.

My grandmother had also made a special afghan for me. She gave it to me for my 14th birthday. Boy, was I surprised. My grandmother told me that this afghan was the most challenging one she had ever made

by Stacey Caiazzo photography editor

and the most time consuming. I could tell just by looking at it that she put a lot of time and effort into it.

The afghan consisted of mauve, pink and rose colored flowers that peaked out from the initial base of the afghan so when you laid on it, the flowers would pop back up by themselves. In one corner of the afghan there is a label that says "made especially for you by your lovmg grandmother." I thought it was the cutest thing I have ever seen. This afghan still lays upon my bed at home an<l probably will until the yarn i!> upon its last string.

The afghan my grandmother was making when I saw her last is finally finished. It was hard for her to determine what to crotchet for my cousin Kelly's new baby since she did not know if it was going to be a boy or girl. So she decided to play it safe and went with different color stars as a pattern.

My grandmother told me that someday she will be making an afghan for my baby. Sometimes I think she likes to crotchet just to pass the time, but other times I think she does it because she wants to give us something that we will always remember her by.

Piece by piece, she crochets the world together into something that I will cherish forever, something which I can cover myself with against the cold and lonely nights.

I do not know what in the world I would do without her, for advice, for comfort, for simply knowing that there is someone out there who knows me as I am, and loves me despite and because of it.

What I do know is that I do not need an afghan to remind me of my grandmother, because she is the type of person that has left a permanent mark close to my heart forever and I will never forget her.