The Blanket

I love that my mother kept this blanket as she moved from our childhood home on Southwell Street to the old stone house where I grew into my teens.  It must have been packed away with other memories she held dear until she landed at Courtyard Place where she bloomed, drenched in sunlit windows with that fabulous magnolia tree out front until the day she died.  I don’t remember discovering it during those numb-filled, hazy days of family claiming handbags and jewelry while weeping over forgotten treasures of Peggy tucked into pockets.  Yet, I must have spirited it away because here it is beside me.  Nearly 13 years after she has passed, not so neatly folded, but remarkably soft, just like you imagine a newborn should be nestled in.  Try as a might, there is no lingering scent.  If there was, what would it be?  A trace of my mother’s perfume?  A hint of the woman I was to become nearly 59 years later? Regardless, to embrace it now, brings a rush of comfort and warm emotion.  Which makes me wonder why I had not thought to sit quietly wrapped in this beloved memory until today?