When I Get Married, I Want a Wife Who Can…..

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My mind was in high gear.  Trying to focus on instructions given.  Being cautious of having steady hands and not letting my nerves get the best of me.  Those mind wires in flashes of seconds drummed up images of sewing with my mother.  Then my husbands’ mother who sews items like they came out of the store or a magazine.  How I dislike sewing, but that the present task is fun and challenging.  Remember Ruth, ‘wrap around twice, grab end and pull through crossing over.  Now wrap once, grab end and pull through crossing over in opposite direction.  Repeat’.  Then I remember when Darron confessed to me after we were married how at one point in his teen years he made a “What I want in a wife, list”.  “When I get married, I want a wife who can sew and play the piano”.  Or so he thought……

Then he met me!  ha-ha

Now, I can sew.  My mother taught me well.  I can hear here laughing all the way from South Carolina to Papua.  I mean, she gave me the skills that I made teddy bears and Christmas ornaments to sell at a craft fair.  I think people bought them because they felt sorry for me.  I learned so much from those experiences.  In time I came to realize that somewhere between the bobbin jamming and the seam needing to be ripped out, that this brought me no pleasure.  Then I met Darron’s family.  His mother and both sister’s have an incredible gift of creating lovely baby outfits and quilts that make you think you would be willing to hand over a lot of money for them.  And so Darron’s and my world collide.  I will procrastinate to mend something and he came from a world of women who sewed.

Today, after 16 1/2 years of marriage….I think I am finally discovering a love of sewing.  Yet not on spun cloth, but on human flesh.  Today at the clinic was my first time to put in stiches.  It caught me quite by surprise.  An elderly lady came to the clinic and needed a mole removed.  She sparkled with joy and grace.  She told me that she is a nurse.  It wasn’t long before Dr. Di was slipping on her sterile gloves and asking me to slide into a pair also.  I thought I was just assisting with dabbing blood and holding needed items……but it soon became very clear to me that Dr. Di was intending that I would help to close the wound.  So stich number 1 and 2, I focused to the best of my ability as Dr. Di patiently explained the steps.  Then she stepped aside and asked me to finish the task at hand.  Three more stiches were needed.  The first felt very awkward as the nylon thread seemed to spring to life and wanted to run from my instruments grasp.  The second and third stiches came with more ease.  All the while, our clinic Dr. encouraging and guiding me along with the patient still smiling and offering encouragement also.

I LOVE sewing!  It’s just all about the material!!!! : )  Give me a few more month’s/years and Darron may just have his wife who not only can sew, but loves it and is great at it.  Just don’t ask me to mend a hole in his shirt.  Fortunately, his mother taught him well.  I’m afraid my boys may be lacking in that department of skills.  Perhaps they should start making a “When I get married list”?!!!

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Dr. Di and her daughter, Lizby.  Their family will leave for furlough in 5 days and will be gone until August ‘13.  Dr. Di has promised that if we need her, she will even do consultations over Skype.  May God bless their family with rest and many special family times and may God give us much wisdom in the meantime.

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