It was something she had done since she was his age. The room would be completely quiet save for the sound of Elise’s song.
There were also many a night where Elise would sit with her son as he slept, meticulously piecing back together the tears that threatened the blanket entirely, wishing there was a way she could also mend her son. The headaches were excruciating, only soothed by a cold wash cloth, his mother’s gentle voice, and the telling of the quilt’s tale as he drifted off to sleep. Many nights, too many, the little boy would curl up in pain, his teeth clenched in a faux smile. At first, the doctors thought he was prone to systemic migraines, but the truth was much worse. “Now you get some sleep, and I’ll continue the story next time.”Įlise, unfortunately, had far too many opportunities to continue the blanket’s tale as her son was given to debilitating headaches. “That’s a story for later,” Elise replied, kissing her son on his forehead. “Who then, Mom? ``The little boy asked., “Who took my blanket to the White House?” John Adams was the first president to live in the White House.” “But not because of George Washington, silly. “Of course it has,” Elise answered with a wink. “You mean my blanket has been to the White House?” “Yes, Yorktown,'' she said smiling, “George Washington took it from Cornwallis and used it during his eight years as president.”
“It wasn’t until the surrender at Yorktown that it was returned.” “During the Revolutionary War, your quilt was captured by General Cornwallis and used to keep his legs warm on the cold winter nights.” Elise said, weaving a story as intricate as the blanket itself. Then she would continue the "true" story of how the quilt had found its way to her son. It was just a little white lie, but it was also the beginning of a cherished tradition. As stitches unraveled and as tears ripped the quilt and the little boy's heart, Elise sat by his bed and mended the heirloom. “It’s made from pieces of fabric from all over Europe and is the first blanket used by the first Americans.” “It was brought over on the Mayflower by the Pilgrims,” she answered to her son's delight. The question was one whose answer was too mundane to inflict on a wide eyed little boy, so Elise stretched the truth just a little. “But before long, it warms up, and I’m snug as a bug in a rug. “I love how cool it feels when I first get into bed,” her little man observed the first night he wrapped himself in the old quilt. The person who pieced together this labor of love must have spent countless hours shaping the useless remnants into a usable blanket. Elise felt it was her duty to repair the inevitable rips as an homage to the unknown creator and as a manifestation of her adoration for the little boy who cherished it. To call it a quilt stretched the definition as it was nothing more than a thousand pieces of oddly shaped swatches stitched together, layer after layer, until the whole of it was thick enough to hold in the warmth of a small boy's body as he drifted off to sleep. There was no way of knowing, the day she bought it at a flea market, that it would become her son’s most valued possession. A mom’s job is never truly finished-Elise knew this instinctively when her son was born. For at least the hundredth time, she sat next to his bed in that chair mending his quilt.
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