909 Mending is a sacred rite

Several weeks ago a button popped off my husband’s sport coat as he was getting ready to walk out the door to usher at church. He rushed upstairs to grab another jacket, leaving the button on the kitchen counter, where is sat until yesterday. About three days ago he brought the button-missing coat down stairs and hung it wordlessly in the hall, where it stayed for a day. I finally moved the poor thing to the dining room and laid the button on top. That put it within 5 ft. of my mother’s sewing cabinet. I think I was secretly hoping a needle and thread would appear and do the job. Meanwhile, the cat has discovered it and thinks the button should be on the floor.

Today I was looking through the photocopy of my mother’s commonplace book which she compiled between 1946 and 1999, although I think some things were published earlier, just not pasted in (poems about the war, for instance). Reading one poem about mending made me pause and wonder if young wives and mothers mend these days.

Women Mending by Nelle Graves McGill

All women at their mending wear a look
As legible as any open book;
And by the way in which they bend above
Each garment, show their wisdom and their love.

A girl just mends her dress to make it do--
Impatiently--till she has something new.
A young wife darns an unaccustomed sock,
With proud, expectant eyes which seek the clock.

A mother sews a tiny button in place
On baby’s gown, a glory on her face;
Or patches up a rent in son’s best breeches
As if she’d reinforce the youth by switches.

But grandma’s fingers touch a boy’s torn cap
As if it were his head upon her lap;
Her tremulous hands are light above the seam
Of grandpa’s coat, as though she darned a dream--
Most frail and beautiful--to make it last
Until his need, and hers, of dreams be past.

Old women know that women must repair
Life’s worn habiliments, to keep life fair;
They know that mending is a sacred rite,
To be performed with prayer, while God gives light.

I checked Google to see if Mrs. McGill might have a collection of verses. I didn’t find anything, but she is in my anthology of “Contemporary American Women Poets" (1935). However, I did find an obituary for her daughter Monna who died two years ago at age 93. She’d been a radio and stage actress in New York, had worked in Kansas City, and then returned to her hometown to live with her parents (probably to care for them) and worked as an editor and correspondent. She published short stories, poetry and essays.

I’m sure there is a story in there somewhere, but I need to go pray over a button while there is light.