A Blanket's Tale

Once upon a time….

I was the SingleGirl. I had a job, I was in school, I was running the world and having fun with it.

In the background was a soldier. And I refused to admit my feelings for him. While my heart had fallen the moment I laid eyes on him that very first time, you would not catch me admitting it. Afraid of what it meant to stand toe to toe with him, to live in his world of ACUs and combat boots, I refused to even ponder a life with him.

Christmas came. In the whirl and twirl, hustle and bustle of the season, I set about buying gifts. But what to get a soldier, what he would want, eluded me. I wandered through malls, department stores, surfed websites, flipped through catalogs, and found nothing. In despair, I found myself wandering through the craft department at Wally World.

There it sat, a bolt of fabric with various Army pictures, with sayings, on it. In thick polar fleece. Impulsively, I bought several yards. A few hours later, I bought several more yards of fleece, this time in gray. I went home with my find, and set about piecing two pieces of fabric into one giant blanket, having never sewn anything before.

I ran several straight pins into my fingers, nearly ran over my fingers sewing the hem, but when I was finished, there it sat. The hem is not perfect, it meanders in several places, the corners were difficult to stitch, I can now do a far better job than I did then.

But still, he got that blanket.

That blanket has come a long way over the years. The night we got married, we laid on it in the dew soaked grass, stared at the stars, and talked about our future. We made plans, dreamed dreams, and made the picture of what we wanted our life to be.

I watched him fold that blanket up, and pack it with his belongings when the time to pack for Iraq came. When I had made that blanket, Iraq loomed on the horizon, and in that moment, when he packed it with clothes and socks and boots, he told me he wanted something of home to sleep with at night. I sent him to Iraq with the blanket I had made, damp still with my tears.

Like the husband, the blanket returned. Dusty and dirty, it sat there packed with his clothes, covered in a fine layer of Iraq sand that I quickly learned got into everything, and was impossible to clean. Washed, dried and fluffed, it went back onto our bed.

There was a night, not long after she was born, still in that newborn stage and wide awake at 3 in the morning, that found us outside, under the stars. I wrapped us both in the blanket, and she looked up at the stars with that hazy, dreamy gaze of a newborn. The months have flown by, and now she rolls around and plays, sits up and chews on her toys. Spread out on my living room floor is the blanket, dotted with her toys and books.

The blanket has come a long way, from a gift made spur of the moment, to momento from back home, to play mat for my little girl. It has been a long journey, one that has taken twists and turns, one has seen major changes in my life.

We've spread that blanket out in the grass and watched the stars, it cushions a little head when she loses her balance, she's fallen asleep on it, and I've taken countless naps underneath it, small fingers tangled in my hair and a little head tucked underneath my chin. I've curled up on the couch, my head resting on a shoulder broader than mine, and watched tv.

That blanket will travel with us, go where we go, it will see more babies, it will see more life. And it will always be a reminder, that love comes, even when you do not expect it.