On My Mamaw

I was thinking today about my mamaw. She passed on back in August after a long and hard battle with both Alzheimer's and cancer. By the time Jay was born back in 2000, my mamaw was already starting to slip and my grandfather was terminally ill with cancer of his own.

My mamaw always made each grandchild a knitted baby blanket. In the closet, I still have my own as do many of my cousins. Our children each received blankets, as well.

I can remember my mamaw setting in the waiting room at Riley after church on Sundays knitting blankets for the new crop of great-grandchildren (5 in one year) she had coming after Jay.  I remember her giving Jay a yellow blanket and beginning work on a lovely pink and blue blended blanket. I commented on how lovely it was and never thought any more about it.

My mamaw was a cantankerous lady, but she also loved her family very much. Jay in particular. She just thought the sun rose and set in Jay. I always joked that my mamaw never liked me until I gave birth to that little miracle. My grandparents, both in their seventies at the time, made it to the hospital for Jay's middle of the night New Year's Eve birth. They religiously came to visit him every Sunday. One of my favorite pictures is of my mamaw holding Jay during a tube feeding, proudly holding that tiny tube up above him.

When she finished that second blanket, she gifted it to Jay, as well. Never mind that she had four other great-grandchildren waiting to be born (one of whom was the child of her favorite grandson). She said that this blanket was meant for Jay.

I was thinking about it tonight and I thought of something. Maybe my mamaw knew that my future held another little one. Maybe she knew in her infinite wisdom that she would not be around to see that little one and wanted to be sure he or she had a blanket made by mamaw, as well. Or maybe I'm just a sentimental lush right now who isn't thinking straight. But even if it is only me wanting to believe she left this gift nine years ago for the little bean who is coming in May, who am I hurting by believing it?