Sometime in February our daughter Sarah will be giving birth to a daughter. She and Jason have named her Eden. Yesterday my other two daughters, Rae and Megan Anna (both mothers of 1 1/2 year old daughters) helped me host a shower for Sarah. Since Jason's family lives far away, I sent his mother and a sister-in-law onesies I had dyed salmon, sky blue, and teal green and had them decorate them, which was an activity that anyone at the shower could do yesterday. The women who came were all related to Sarah--cousins, aunts, grandmothers, second-cousins, great-aunts, nieces, sisters, mother. We ended the shower with a ritual Rae introduced. With one ball of yarn we each wound a strand around our wrist as we spoke one thought or wish for Sarah in this final month of pregnancy, and/or as she labored, birthed and entered motherhood. When were were done a circle connected us all, and after a prayer of blessing we cut the threads between us, and some of us will keep these strands on our wrists until we hear of Eden's arrival, being especially mindful of Sarah in these final weeks of pregnancy.
I so cherish the rituals that mark the passing mantel of motherhood that moves humanity through time. Especially perhaps those that move daughter to mother, and mother to grandmother, and grandmother to great-grandmother.
My gift to Sarah was to re-bind an old quilt with such tattered edges that it had spent much of the last 40 years in a closet. The quilt is one that Eden's great-great-great grandmother made for Sarah's grandmother (Donna McIntosh) for her high school graduation. From Eden to Grandma Marr, the woman who made the quilt, are 6 generations of women (including Eden as a woman-to-be!) all connected to a quilt preserved and passed down through the generations.
May we be faithful to those who have come before us, and to those who will come after.