It was a gift, finding old videos of her: chubby with lingering rolls, voice high and babyish. The clips were mostly mundane: playing with Play-Doh, my husband and I encouraging her to crawl, a younger me hugging an infant her on the couch. None of the moments in these videos were remarkable. I had no specific memories of any of them.
Still, it was as though a long-settled fog had lifted. It was all clear to me: this is the work you’ve been doing. This is what you’ve been creating each day. Life. Joy. A big, woven quilt that is this family.
I suddenly saw it like this: we make this quilt, patch by patch, each day. Some patches are dark, mottled, misshapen. I know these days well. Other patches perfect squares, light and bright. These are days that fill our photo albums, because I never want to forget. Some patches sparkle, even, when the light hits them just right. Those are the days I forget to take pictures, because I am so alive in the moment.
And maybe you don’t need to be an expert quilter to do this; maybe you can just loop thread in and out with enough love and concentration. In and out and in and out, two pieces side-by-side, over and over, is all it takes. Day after day we have been threading these little squares together, without realizing our tiny, repetitive actions have been creating something big, something that will cover and comfort us our whole lives.
The truth is, I have spent so much time weighed down by the slow dullness of the days that I never realized what I was stitching together. I didn’t envision how this quilt would be handed down, generation after generation. I saw only the monotonous looping motion of my hands, the sharp point of the needle, the whisper of impossible thread. It felt insignificant. I felt stunted, smaller somehow, and still shrinking. Until I caught sight of myself, a freshly minted mom, smiling with true joy at my infant daughter; until I watched my husband happily pressing Play-Doh into shapes; and heard our voices dripping with adoration; and fast-forwarded through our family growing in clips: two, then three, then four.
I could see it, then: This is my unsung masterpiece.
No one will hunt me down for an autograph because of this contribution to the world. Oprah will never call with words of praise for this work. I will never receive a raise, because I’ll never be paid a penny. When my head hits the pillow each night, it might land with certainty of a job well done and it might fall heavy with doubt and guilt and frustration, but I will not sleep late because my hard work and devotion will never earn me a day off.
Still, it’s clear to me: every day I am patching together this big, beautiful life. And it is made of sunrises and adventure, it’s made of tears and tantrums, it’s made of dirty diapers and booger-filled tissues. It’s made of days trapped in the house; it’s made of days spent wild and free. It’s made of books and Legos and deep breaths and time outs. It’s made of snuggling together for hours and it’s made of locking myself in the bathroom for two minutes of peace.
All of it, every moment, twists and threads together and makes up who We are. And it has been good and it has been hard and it has been lonely and it has been too much togetherness and still, and still, I love who We are, and who We are becoming.
This is the real work; what really matters. This is Us, pieced together moment by moment. There is no master plan to this masterpiece. We do not always get it right. And still, now that I can see what we’re creating, I find that every patch has its purpose. It always has.
I bow my head in honor of all the days I felt so insignificant. I see them laid before me now, I see hands that kept stitching and stitching and stitching, even then. For a moment I am so filled with gratitude that I cannot breathe.