The Cedar Chest

Cedar chest open before me.

Sunlight falling through iced windows.
Piles of unfolded sweaters strewn inside. I sort and fold.

To donate, to keep, to refurbish.

Underneath the sweaters lie sentimental treasures.

Soft with age.Annaliese passes in the hall with a math lesson and runs to call the other kids.

She's been asking to go through here for a long time.

We take them out; examine the fine stitches done sixty years ago by once nimble fingers eagerly awaiting the hold of a firstborn child. My father's baby blanket.

The varies colors of wool remnants, like Joseph's coat of many colors, unfolds thick and warm. Our kid's great grandmother pulled her boys, wrapped in this, across the snow in a runner sled. The black and white photo lies in a drawer.

An age old quilt in blues, reds, greens on a white background. Stitched by the grandmother of my grandmother.




Underneath it all, satin.

Just pretty fabric that will perish with age.

But representing so much more.

Love, faith, commitment, promises. Covenant.