Raggy Maggy

 “Mom, please teach me how to knit,” said Faith one rainy summer afternoon.

Grace gasped as her heart skipped a beat. Lately, her daughter had avoided the basement workshop like the plague, their current cold war had lasted considerably longer than the teenager’s pre- and peri-menstrual days.

Come to think of it, this one has lasted the whole bloody cycle, and counting.

 “Is your iPad broken?” she asked without looking at her.

“No, it’s working perfectly.”

“Is the Wi-Fi on?”

“Yes, it is mom.”

I know you did NOT just roll your eyes at me.

Don’t be daft, Grace. Take the white flag!

“Come hold down this corner while I finish pinning it down and we can start with the basics.” She gestured to the quilt that she had spread out on her extra wide worktable.

Faith stared at the work in progress, silently admiring the details on the emerging picture. She saw the laughing faces of a couple whose happiness her mother had magically captured with cut-out pieces of coloured fabrics and intricate stitching. Grace’s remarkably popular portrait quilts were exquisite, and sometimes looked better than painted masterpieces.

 In a dark corner of the workshop stood an antique trunk and Grace went to open it. As soon as she lifted the creaky lid, a cloud of stale dust billowed out, sending her into a sneezing fit. It was several minutes before she could resume her task, this time wearing a scarf over her nose and mouth.

 “This is where I kept my crafting tools as a girl - my treasure chest,” she said as she took out several bundles and placed them on the floor.

“I’m sure there’s a pair of knitting needles in here somewhere.”

 Faith also dug into the fascinating collection of multi-coloured yarns, silky bits of cloth tied up in bundles and all sorts of pretty trinkets, odds and ends. A bright pink crochet bag caught her eye, and she opened it.

 “Oh, you found Raggy-Maggy!”

A surprised giggle escaped Grace’s lips when she spotted a cloth doll lying inside the bag and reverently pulled it out. Her face was made of a chocolate-coloured stretchy fabric. Black yarn sewn on her head for hair was tied into two little pigtails whose ends fell down to the shoulders and were tied with ribbons. She had large white buttons, the type with four tiny holes in the middle for eyes, and a sweet, embroidered mouth, no nose.

  Grace inhaled the doll’s scent as she hugged it like a long-lost friend and caught a whiff of her grandmother’s perfume. She closed her eyes to savour the sweet fragrance and heard Granny’s gentle voice,

 “If you put your mind to it, you can do anything, child. Just believe in yourself.”

“I can’t do it, Granny! I’ve tried and tried, and I just can’t get it right!” she heard her eight-year-old self reply.

“Here, give it to me.” Granny reached out and took the knitting needles from Grace. She inspected the dreadful piece of work that was full of dropped stitches and uneven tension.

 “Granny, no!” she wailed as she watched Granny pull out the needles and unravel her work.

“I’ve been knitting it for days! You can’t just undo it!”

 The elderly woman ignored her, calmly rolled up the yarn into a ball and then handed it back to her.

“Cast on 15 stitches and start again. This time, be patient and don’t rush.”

“I don’t want to start again! How could you make me do that? It was nearly four inches long!”

“My child, when you make a mistake, the wisest action is to start over and make corrections,” said Granny, “If you give up, you admit that the task is smarter than you are.”

 As intended, Grace felt challenged and tried again, this time paying painstaking attention to the instructions.

         When she opened her eyes, she found her daughter staring at her thoughtfully. Grace smiled sheepishly when she realised that her cheeks were wet.

Growing up, Faith had gone through dozens of expensive plastic dolls, plush Teddy bears and lately collected Barbie dolls fanatically but was not quite sure what this toy was.

“What is that mommy?” she finally asked.

“Raggy-Maggy is a ragdoll, or a Golliwog as they were called ages ago. Golliwog was a racist name for African versions of the rag doll.”

“I never had anything like this,” Faith said, “Can I hold her?”

As Grace handed her the doll, she watched her daughter’s face.

“She’s cute in a creepy kind of way. So floppy and raggedy, I can’t figure out why you’re getting all nostalgic over her.”

Grace took the doll back and said, “Her head and limbs were made from my dad’s old socks. These buttons came from Granny’s favourite cardigan that she used to wear every day in the house.”

As she explained, her fingers caressed Raggy-Maggy, as one would a baby lying in their arms.

 “These booties were my first attempt at knitting. Granny made me re-do them countless times until I got it right. She would never let me quit.”

 Grace remembered how she had hated those first lessons when she felt like she was all thumbs, her enthusiasm waning faster than a burning candle.

“If it wasn’t for her, I would never have discovered my passion for design. She taught me to knit, crochet and quilt.”

“Did she also do artistic quilts like you?” asked Faith.

“Not pictures or portraits like mine, but she was an artist alright. I’m just a bit more adventurous.”

  Turning her attention back to the doll, she continued, “Raggy-Maggy is stuffed with pieces of my mother’s dress, so I always imagined I had bits of her and my dad whenever she was with me.”

 Stunned, Faith picked up a pair of knitting needles and stared at them silently for several minutes. Her face flushed as she thought of how cattily she had behaved towards this woman who had done nothing but love her.

When she looked at her mother there were tears in both their eyes. There was an unspoken apology in Faith’s eyes that she had neither the courage nor the words to voice.

 “Mommy, I’m so lucky I didn’t have to grow up with a Raggy-doll as a substitute for you and Dad.” She whispered in awe.

“How I have longed for you to know this!” said Grace in a choked voice as she looked into her daughter’s eyes and saw a new light in them.

Would she let me hug her? Maybe I shouldn’t push it.

“I’ve made so many mistakes, Mom,” Faith told her.

“My Granny once told me that when you make a mistake, the wisest action is to start over and make corrections,” Said Grace, “I wish you had met her. She was so wise and wouldn’t have made a mess of mothering you like I did.”

……and if you give up, you admit that the task is smarter than you are.

  Without warning, Faith flew into her arms, “You’re an awesome mother and I’ve been such a horrid nitwit, trying to be cool!”

 Grace felt her eyes prick in response as they held each other tight. She had missed this and was reluctant to let go.

 “Mom?” said Faith when they eventually let go, “If I make a confession, will you promise not to be mad at me?”

Don’t break the spell, Grace.

“Of course, honey.”

Faith raised her eyebrows, then with a cheeky smile confessed, “I don’t really want to learn knitting.” And they both burst into unrestrained laughter.