Anna/Nanna/Mom would have turned 74 today. It’s another “first” without her. It’s a tough day. I would have bought a card I didn’t mail until it was weeks late (this is a shared tradition in our family and we’ve found cards she bought us at her house, too, so please don’t think I’m a bad kid – at least not based on this). I would have called her and she would have told me about what her friends had been up to, including a likely harassment of my brother. As I’ve thought about her and these friends since she left us, I have had to come to a realization.
My mom was in a gang.
They may have looked harmless at first glance but make no mistake they meet enough of the criteria to be declared the 1%’er of quilters. There are more than three of them. The identify as a group and show their unity with their quilting retreat t-shirts. I’ve seen some brightly colored quilted jackets in there too and the jacket is always a giveaway. Their activities had a shared objective. Collect all the fabric. And the thread. And the patterns.
My mom ran their clubhouse. Sure, they’d travel between locations for their meetings but the economies they dealt in through their underground quilting empire were stored in her house. She flaunted her riches with rooms and shelves dedicated to the display. An act of dominance if there ever was one. I’m not saying she was the leader but she was high up in the quilting gang hierarchy.
Even with this undeniable evidence, the gang indicator that stands out the most is this gang identifies as family. Once you are in the family, you don’t leave. This not so secretive sisterhood keeps her memory alive. They look out for her children. They are there for the moments Nanna would have loved – holidays, birthdays, and graduations. They pick up the kid who finds himself stranded on the side of the road because he wasn’t responsible enough to take his damn cell phone with him. They put the pieces she left behind together to finish the projects. It’s what gangs do.
Whether you’ve dealt fabric with her for years or recently dabbled by purchasing through this site you are in the gang. So on this day that’s so difficult for family, I am so grateful for and celebrate this quilting gang who show up for her, for each other, and for us.
We’ve accepted our fate – we are part of the gang. We didn’t choose the quilting life. It chose us.