Blanketing Life

What in your home is a snapshot of your life? Is it photo albums and scrapbooks? Pictures on the wall? Pieces of furniture? I recently had the revelation that much of the story of my life - at least the last twenty years of it - can be told by the blankets in our house.



I was washing a few loads of blankets today. A sleepover with ten fourteen year olds - who travel lightly with no change of clothes or sleeping bags - caused me to pull out a few stacks of blankets. They were sleeping in the basement, which is quite chilly at night. They may be too cool for sleeping bags, but I was not about to be responsible for them freezing for hours on end.



So as I washed all of these blankets, post-sleepover (after all, it was a group of fourteen year olds, almost all of whom had come to our house following two hours of basketball practice), I realized the story they tell.



There are the TCU blankets - some well-worn from my years in college, some acquired during trips as an alum. All purple and sporting a Horned Frog. A reminder of the great times I had and that the person I am today is in large part because of my years in college.



And the Lowes Island blankets. Navy blue and forest green. Relatively simple in appearance and size. Except for the Lowes Island club logo in the corner. A reminder not only of our time in Virginia, but also a measure of how far we had come. My husband was an Evans Scholar, the scholarship for golf caddies, memorialized in comedy in the movie "Caddy Shack." The scholarship that provided the financial means for Terry to go to college and set a path for his future. Most Evans Scholars caddy at private clubs; it is a source of pride for a former Scholar to one day join a golf club and support another generation of caddies. Lowes Island was the first club we joined and where we spent much time playing golf, swimming with the kids and meeting new friends. We're still non-resident members and I'm not sure we will ever give it up. Terry was very proud the day we joined.

Then there is the Great Falls blanket; a picture blanket of sorts. It has scenes of the Colvin Run Mill just a few blocks from our house in Great Falls, and Thelma's - the wonderful ice cream store that also sold a little bit of everything (including the Great Falls blanket). That blanket brings tears to my eyes. It reminds me of our wonderful years in Virginia, and will forever make me wonder why we ever left. It was a few years before I let anyone use the blanket; I wanted it to stay pristine forever. But then I realized that we needed to make it part of the fabric of our life, to snuggle up with the memories.

And some of the most recent additions to our collection - the blankets, much like the Great Falls blanket, from the 50th Anniversary of Infant Jesus of Prague church, our newest faith home in Chicago. Those blankets have joined us at football games filled with spirit (and perhaps The Spirit) and nights at home watching television together. They represent who we are now, where we have made our home.

Blankets have wrapped themselves around me in times of joy and sorrow, comfort and pain. They have warmed me, surrounded me with memories of the past, and are present as we create the stories we will tell tomorrow. The stories of our life.