JE owns them and I borrow them to make them the way they should be in my world. Lee Anne
Stitches of Warmth
"Stephanie, I'm worried about Mother. She's been very quiet these last few days," a concerned Ellen Plum told her younger daughter. "She tells me everything is fine."
"I'll talk with her, Mom." Stephanie said hoping to alleviate her worry, but she was concerned, too. Edna Mazur was always a 'live wire'. She decided to hang around her parent's house and offer to ride Grandma to the 'Cut n' Curl'.
It wasn't long after she finished her coffee that her grandmother came down the stairs with a shopping bag in her hand.
"Hi, Grandma."
"Hi, Baby Granddaughter."
Stephanie studied her small grandmother for a moment and she didn't seem as bubbly as usual. "I'm leaving, can I give you a lift to the beauty parlor?" she asked wanting some time alone with her.
Grandma placed her pocketbook on her arm, Stephanie picked up the shopping bag. It wasn't too heavy for her, but knew it would be for Edna Mazur. "Sure, that would be nice."
She boosted Grandma up in her Rangeman Explorer. Stephanie had been working more for Ranger's company and dating the boss. Stephanie and Morelli had a big fight in Pino's and somehow Joe ended up wearing a plate of spaghetti. Before the cop could even try and make-up, Ranger took the opportunity to ask her out to dinner and a movie. They have been dating for the last month and had an indoor camping trip on 7 this last weekend. They toasted marshmallows under a big canopy on the roof since it rained.
The shopping bag that went in the backseat had an embroidered blanket neatly folded in it Stephanie noticed. "That blanket is beautiful, Grandma."
She smiled a proud and a little sad smile saying, "I just finished it."
"Who is it for?"
Grandma looked at her granddaughter as she drove. "I don't know, but I'm sure someone will need it."
The driver didn't say anything hoping Edna Mazur would explain and she did indeed.
"When your great grandparents and I immigrated to this country I was very young. My parents wanted a better life than we had in Hungary. We saved what money we could but couldn't travel with much. When we finally boarded a ship in England, they weren't the luxury ones of today. They were drafty and cold. We shared a crowded room with other people. There was an old woman traveling to join her sisters in New York, she befriended us. We shared the extra food we packed in England and she shared an extra blanket with us so my mother, father, and I were warm. When we finally arrived at Ellis Island, she told us to keep it. Her family raised sheep, spun the wool, and she wove it herself. I kept that blanket using it to keep your mother warm when she came along in her cradle. Every year on the anniversary of my family stepping on American soil to start our new life, I donate a blanket to a soup kitchen or a church so someone was warm like we were."
"Oh, Grandma, how special." Stephanie was wiping tears from her cheeks as she drove.
"The girls from the beauty shop found out about the blanket. When we are on our bus trips we mend old blankets that we have or buy at thrift stores while we are riding to and from the casonos. I guess you could say 'friendships are sewn one stitch at a time' on the way to the slots!" Grandma laughed at that. She sounded like Grandma Mazur.
"That's so nice your friends help," Stephanie said glad her grandmother had friends willing to help. "How many blankets do you have and what are you going to do with them?"
"We did go on a lot of bus trips this last year, Stephanie. We have twenty-two boxes stored in the back of the 'Cut n' Curl'. The Veteran's home was damaged in that last big rainstorm and things were damaged, so some are going there. And the others are going to the homeless shelter at St. Anthony's."
"I'll help you deliver them, Grandma. I'm so proud of you. With that many boxes, how about I borrow Ranger's truck?"
"Ain't that a pip! A stitch in time…saves nine in a hot pick-up truck!
Let's roll, Stephanie!" Grandma whooped it up with swinging arms.
Ranger was out on a client meeting, so Stephanie and Grandma confiscated his extra keys from his desk. The picture of Stephanie and Ranger with his arm around her neck snapped by Tank in Pino's parking lot was on his desk made her happy.
Not even one box was loaded into the bed of the big black truck when Tank's Hummer pulled up. It took seven of Grandma's girlfriends to push the dolly out stacked with just six boxes.
"Babe, what are you doing?" In a flash, Ranger ran up taking a box from her.
"I borrowed your truck to make deliveries. Today is the anniversary of when my great-grandparents entered Ellis Island and a woman on the ship gave Grandma's parents a blanket to keep them warm on the journey across the Atlantic. Half of these boxes of mended blankets go to the Veteran's home and half to St. Anthony's," Stephanie told her Grandma's story as the boxes were filling up the back of the truck.
"Edna," the Cuban Bad Ass stopped his loading to hug her quickly before her fingers were full of his ass, "that is wonderful. Thank you from this ex-Army man."
"Anytime," Grandma elbowed Ranger, "I am a material girl. Wanna see my fabric collection?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him hoping to entice him.
"Another time."
"I'm riding in the hot truck!" Grandma announced with her friends helping her up in it once all twenty-two boxes were loaded.
Ranger kissed Stephanie. "Sit in the middle, Babe."
She giggled; Grandma still scared the muscled Cuban man.
After all the blankets were delivered and every one appreciated, a suggestion was made by Grandma when Father Milt asked what St. Anthony's shelter could do to honor all the sewing and quilting the women did, she said maybe some of the people in the shelter could read or sing to the Veteran's. The shelter had a small choir of regulars who sang in church. That's what they did and old military men shared their memories, skills, and baked treats of cookies and pies for their guests. Each group discovered new friends and a purpose.
He was touched by Edna's anniversary mission and she was Stephanie's crazy grandmother, Ranger arranged for Rossini's to cater a special dinner for Grandma and her beauty crew as a send off for an East Coast Casino bus trip. The hi-light was an 'all-you-can-eat' buffet with a personal 'welcome' by Donald Trump in Atlantic City as a favor to Ranger. The ladies were voting Ranger the number one 'HOT' guy of Trenton and beginning a beauty shop campaign to elect him Mayor. Ranger didn't run, but he did receive a number of write-in votes at the May election coming in second. He was relieved he didn't win because Mickey Mouse won as the Deputy Mayor.
The Bad-Ass Cuban and his blue eyed bride received as a wedding present a quilted blanket from Edna elegantly embroidered and with patches of a worn, soft woolen blanket kept after all the years gone by meant to keep her great-granddaughter, Sierra Elizabeth Manoso warm leaving the hospital in her parents' arms.