I'd opened it throughout the years to get out needles so I could hem something, or look for something that might be of use with a knitting project, but I'd always avoided looking at it in detail, lest it feel like looking her in the face for the first time since her death over 30 years ago.
But since I bought a sewing machine, I wanted the kit to be my own, and not just "my mother's sewing box," after all these years.
Finding her buttons, most of which were purchased for outfits she made for me and, unexpectedly, crochet hooks, brought an upwelling of tears, and for some reason I resisted them at first.
But when I let the tears come, gave them permission to just be, they didn't last long, and were replaced with a warmth for her memory, for her skill with thread and yarn and needles, and gratitude for passing that on to me.
