To Sew a Soul

There was a letter amongst the bills and adverts that caught Grandmama Irene’s attention. An official sort of document from the hospital all the way in Atlanta. She was expecting this, she knew what it would say, but opening the letter and looking at the results was an entirely different sort of knowing. It was more official. She was dying. Typed plainly and written simply. She didn’t have much time left. And she felt it. Lately her days have been growing shorter as exhaustion overcame her and her lungs burned quicker. Gone were the days of going to Bridge with the girls or bowling with her husband Rupert, God rest his soul. Grandmama Irene wasn’t upset, not particularly. She lived a long 86 years, she had married her high school sweetheart and they had a beautiful child together. It was rather later in life that they decided to have kids, resulting in their daughter Penny. But underneath the contentment of life was a strong feeling that plunged deep into her cancer ridden lungs: regret. She would never meet her granddaughter. Penny had told her the wonderful news not two weeks before, but she wasn’t due until long after Grandmama Irene was good and dead. That regret started to morph into something of an obsession, a notable one. She was beyond treatment and with only a few weeks left in her life, she was determined to meet her granddaughter come hell or high water. That obsession morphed, turned and twisted into something ugly. Something permanent. Regular research showed no hope. Science, for all its advancements, was useless to her dying body. But then there were other solutions. Ones that started as speculations and rumors leading to old wives tales and crafted campfire stories. But there was a truth to those stories Grandmama Irene would come to find. One that would give her the time she needed.

It started with the ingredients. An object of choice, a needle imbued with life, and thread made of a deadman's hair. Grandmama Irene was dying, so she used her own hair. Cutting off her beautiful gray locks, she gently weaved the pieces together to form long strands of thread. The needle was tricky. If the tales were to be believed, the needle can only work if imbued with the weavers life, which made matters tricky. Grandmama Irene couldn’t complete this task as a dead woman. Weeks went by as she tried to bypass this dilemma, she even went as far as piercing the flesh of a dead relative during a funeral, but to no avail. With days left to spare, and no energy left to spare, she knew what she must do. After a tearful visit to her daughter and a whispered goodbye at her husband’s grave, she sat in her rocking chair, needle threaded with the delicate string and a bear in the other. With a final glance at the house she had called home for over 50 years, she stabbed the needle through her chest, pricking her heart. There was an immediate sense of urgency and strangely peace as she yanked the needle out. The needle was small, but it had done enough damage where she could feel her already limited life force waning considerably. With sheer determination and force of will, she started sewing a heart onto the teddy bear she held in her hands; blinded by the tears that wouldn’t stop leaking from her eyes. When the thread was gone, and the needle tucked firmly into the heart, Grandmama Irene gave one final ragged breath, pressing it softly into the bear before dying on her chair.

Before she passed, Grandmama Irene made sure Penny knew that the bear with a heart was made especially for her granddaughter. She made Penny promise that it would be given to her, in the event of her death. And Penny kept that promise, after the tragic news of her mother’s passing, Penny had found the bear and kept it safely tucked away until little Abby was born.

Grandmama Irene couldn’t feel, couldn’t walk or talk freely. But she could see well enough through the bear's eyes. Abby loved her bear which Penny affectionately started calling “Red” after the bright red heart in the center of its chest. Grandmama Irene watched Abby as a little babe, such a tiny thing. Abby looked a lot like Penny did when she was a baby, the same reddish hair and bright eyes. Though the dimpled chin definitely came from her daddy. As Abby grew, she started to become more interested in her bear. At first, slowly tracing the heart with unsure fingers, and then grabbing Red to hold onto as she slept safely in her cradle. All the while Grandmama Irene watched Abby and she was content.

In no time at all, Abby had grown like a weed and started to walk around, dragging Red along with her. Grandmama Irene loved to play tea with the girl, and loved to “talk” with the other figures around the makeshift table. She even loved when Abby snuck her in during bath time because Abby loved baths, and the absolute joy on her granddaughter's face as she splashed and giggled at Red made being sopping wet and smelly worth it.

Soon Abby was starting school, it was fun to be the little girls show and tell item 10 weeks in a row, but Grandmama Irene wasn’t complaining. She just watched with pure joy as her granddaughter introduced her Red as the “bestest toy there ever was”. Abby loved Red as much as Grandmama Irene loved Abby. But time does a funny thing with joy. It seems the more you love it, the faster it goes by. Kindergarten and first grade flew by, but then second, third, fourth, fifth grade. It just never stopped, gone were the days of tea parties and making believe animal friends. Now Grandmama Irene sat in a chest with a load of other toys, waiting for the day Abby would come and play again. It was one such day, of Grandmama Irene hoping and praying for just one more chance to see her granddaughter, but the young lady who opened the toy chest no longer held the radiance of childhood innocence, no this was a teenager making space in her old toy chest to store more “age appropriate” things. Notebooks, old phones, and cards were thrown into the chest. Grandmama Irene could practically feel the heavyweight of all the things between her and her granddaughter, but she could hardly do a thing about it.

So, she waited. She waited and waited until the day finally came where Abby, a full grown adult Abby finally opened that old toy chest. She sifted through the belongings stacked on top of each other, rooting through the lost items. A trash bag was in her hand, and Grandmama Irene feared the worst as she stared at the bottomless plastic. But Abby was a smart girl, upon picking up her bear, she whispered, “Hey, Red. We had the best of times, didn’t we? You’re not looking so good anymore.” Abby was right in that observation. She couldn’t see herself, but she knew what age did to soft teddy bears after being played with, dunked, and squished.

And Abby proceeded to put Grandmama Irene up on a shelf overlooking a vacant room, where she waited for her granddaughter to come back to, but she never did.