“He said to me, ‘Do not fear, greatly beloved; you are safe. Be strong and courageous!’ When he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, ‘Let my lord speak, for you have strengthened me.’”
Daniel 10:19
I watched the small boy suddenly realize
He was alone in the crowd.
His steps slowed, as his vision went long and wide
Searching for the face of the adult
Who would protect him from the sea of strangers.
But he could not find who he was looking for.
I watched him as the crushing fear
Began to take him
The understanding he was lost and alone
With no idea how to find his way back.
And as I prepared myself
To approach him with my own child on my hip
Thinking to hold him safely at my side
Until the one for whom he searched was found
I watched
As other mothers peeled away from their families
Nearly as silent as they were sudden
Forming a protective circle of a love around him
A circle of mothers, who had all been drawn
To the fear of this small, small child
Who was incredibly lost,
As if the tears he had yet to cry had been a summoning spell
That called out to us to keep him safe.
That moment, as the women comforted that stranger’s boy,
Had a certain kind of ordinary holiness
That renders all the theology and philosophy I’ve learned
Empty words strewn from empty mouths.
No other proof of God can ever hold such power
As watching those women respond without hesitation
Photo made available through the Library of Congress
I knew I would have girls. I can’t explain how I knew, other than to say I envisioned them, and brought them to life. As if they manifested out of the dreams I had of them before they were born. When they were growing inside me, I knew who they were. I imagined how they would be. I felt their spirits residing in me and they felt different than my son. I thought about a family portrait hanging on the wall and saw that it had two little girls. Girls who would be like me.
When I think about the ways in which my girls are like me, it involves a level of creativity that continues a tradition of my matrilineal line. They are constantly asking me for art supplies so they can make things for themselves and their friends. My girls watch me make things- wreaths, blankets, mittens, scarves, gloves, jewelry, art, decorations. I picked this up from my mother. She always had a project going. Even now, when I visit her, I see all her threads, needles and yarn piled neatly on the side table, or tucked safely in a bag. I have a basket that serves the same purpose at my house. Her mother created ceramics, plastic canvas decor and toys, sewed her own clothes. One summer she made a dollhouse while she was recovering from a broken hip. Her mother made doll clothes, and a years long project she worked on (re-creating the dresses of the First Ladies of the United States) is on public display in the library where she lived in Constantine, MI. My matrilineage is creative. In this family, we make things.
When my 7 year old asked me to take her shopping for supplies for a project a few weeks ago, we wandered the aisles of Joann Fabrics looking for exactly the right items to buy. At one point we stopped in front of the modeling clay, and as I was looking at all the colors available, I reminisced about my own mother taking me shopping at Michael’s to buy modeling clay, so I could sculpt bears and mice and frogs. My daughter asked me if she could have some, so she could try it out. While I was crocheting a few nights later, my 5 year old asked me to show her how to make the stitches. She practiced for a little while before she handed the hook back to me. I’ve been asked to show them knitting, embroidery, cross stitch, plastic canvas, sewing, painting. When I look around my house and she all the things that were made by Grammy and Mom, these questions of “show me how” bring a smile to my face.
It’s strange though, having this heritage but not having a name to connect it. I would say that my girls are following the Orr tradition, but Orr is my father’s name, not my mother’s. So I could think that me and the girls are like the Kilpatricks. But this isn’t right either, because Kilpatrick is my grandfather’s name, not my grandmother’s. So, perhaps this is a Burgener trait. Grandma Burgener, after all, is the one who made the doll dresses, the one who taught my Grammy, who is turn taught Mom, who then taught me. But Burgener was her married name. Before that, she was Wittenberg, but Wittenberg was her father’s name…
What, then, do I call this heritage? What is the name of the passing of tradition from mother to daughter? How do we talk about the things we learned from our mothers, that we pass on to our daughters, when the names of the women have been erased, replaced by the names of the men who were tied to them? How can I describe myself and these girls when I don’t know the names of the women who gave these traits to me?
I can think of myself in terms of what I do know. I am Sarah, daughter of Barbara, daughter of Evelyn, daughter of Vernie. Beyond that I’m not sure. What I do know for sure though, is that this matrilineage lives as long as I remember it. So I will teach these little girls the names of the women who came before them, who passed down this love of creating. Maybe they will come up with a name for it when they are grown. Or perhaps they will think of themselves as daughters of Sarah, daughter of Barbara, daughter of Evelyn, daughter of Vernie. Either one is fine with me.
The Quick and the Dead 