{"id":96,"date":"2011-10-21T17:50:12","date_gmt":"2011-10-21T21:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/?p=96"},"modified":"2011-10-21T17:52:04","modified_gmt":"2011-10-21T21:52:04","slug":"i-have-no-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/i-have-no-words\/","title":{"rendered":"I have no words"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"dslc-theme-content\"><div id=\"dslc-theme-content-inner\"><p>When I was five, my parents got divorced. For many long years, my mother raised me by herself. She worked a job that didn&#8217;t put any of her great intellect or passion to work, for long hours, to support us both and to make sure I had every opportunity. And I could be a selfish child, and didn&#8217;t always appreciate what she gave up for me.<\/p>\n<p>Today she visited Boston and I didn&#8217;t get to see her long; perhaps only an hour. I showed her the office at GAMBIT, and she met my co-workers, and she drove me home. In the car with her were some gifts she wanted to give me&#8230; mostly things for the kitchen, as she is notorious for encouraging me to cook. I got a blender and a potato masher. And one other thing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Open it. It&#8217;s a present, after all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Inside was this:<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-96 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/i-have-no-words\/present_01\/'><img width=\"53\" height=\"53\" src=\"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/present_01-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/i-have-no-words\/present_02\/'><img width=\"53\" height=\"53\" src=\"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/present_02-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>She said the stitching wasn&#8217;t perfect, and that she&#8217;s sorry it took so long because she wanted to give it to me when I got my PhD, but that it took time to do all of this by hand.<\/p>\n<p>And then she needed to leave, as it&#8217;s a long drive back to Syracuse. They were only here for the day. I hugged her, and thanked her, and told her it was perfect. She and my stepfather&#8217;s dad, who came with her, got in their car and headed off home.<\/p>\n<p>I managed not to actually break down into real tears until just now, taking those pictures and making this post.<\/p>\n<p>On that quilt is everything. My kindergarten graduation. My high school letters. The shirt designs from every play I was ever in, and from every high school I ever attended. Pictures of my family at my high school graduation, my bachelor&#8217;s graduation from Wisconsin. Shirts from Chadbourne, and Syracuse, and Ohio. She said the Syracuse University shirt came more or less literally off my Grandma Harper&#8217;s back. And she said it wasn&#8217;t perfect, but she wanted me to have it.<\/p>\n<p>It was all the things I ever loved, all the things I ever did that made me who I am, right here. Stitched by hand, by her, as a reminder to me.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ll ever be able to thank her for it. Words are maybe the only thing I&#8217;ve ever been good at, the only thing I ever really had a talent for. And right now I don&#8217;t have any that are appropriate. In the end they are limited and I don&#8217;t know how to react.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m listening to this song &#8212;\u00a0<a title=\"Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep -- Dearly Beloved\" href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/yHNYxwzB9xU\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/yHNYxwzB9xU<\/a> &#8212; on loop, because it&#8217;s the closest I can come.<\/p>\n<p>But I will give it a try.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing on that quilt, nothing that was ever true and meaningful in my life, nothing in my life that ever led me to think for even a moment that I was ever worth anything&#8230; none of it would have been possible without the woman who sat there and sewed every stitch, and gave it to me and said it wasn&#8217;t perfect, but that she wanted me to have it.<\/p>\n<p>There has never, nor ever will there be, anything more perfect than this gift, no matter what she says. Because this isn&#8217;t just a reminder of me. It&#8217;s a reminder of her.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was five, my parents got divorced. For many long years, my mother raised me by herself. She worked a job that didn&#8217;t put any of her great intellect or passion to work, for long hours, to support us both and to make sure I had every opportunity. And I could be a selfish&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/i-have-no-words\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">I have no words<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3NfdI-1y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions\/101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}