Grandmother's Tablecloth

Grandmother's Tablecloth

Non-descript and almost useless. An old rag that needed washing or throwing out. Lillian picked it up from the floor where it had lain useless and in the way. Not one to tidy her house on a too regular basis, she had let things pile up again. Dishes in the sink. Unmade bed. Papers and bills needing attention littered the dining room table. Lillian decided that today was the day for a good clean. Why did she choose to pick up this old rag first? Lillian had thought it might make some good floor rags. She threw it and some other rags in the washing machine and went about picking up, straightening up and in general getting ready to wash and polish. Lillian took the rags from the dryer, folded them leaving the old table cloth till last.When she folded and felt the soft clean fabric, the old rag transformed with the energy of memories bubbling into consciousness. A long time ago this small tablecloth had graced her grandmother’s breakfast table.  

An ecru coloured linen tablecloth. Ecru. That word, funny sounding to Lillian’s five year old ear, was easy to pronounce.  She ran her hands over adornments of translucent red plates and pitchers, apples and flowers, green grapes and leaves that traced around the linen borders. Lillian remembered reaching out her tiny hand and gently touching the pretty pictures in fabric and dye. Brown patches from grandmother’s old cast pressing iron had burned the fabric and become part of the beautiful old tablecloth.

Lillian remembered the day her grandfather had given the tablecloth to her grandmother when on a weekend visit with her grandparents. It was a Sunday morning in the spring before breakfast. Sunshine filtered through her grandmother's precious lace curtains that framed the kitchen window. Birdsong twittered in through the wood framed screen door.

Used only for Sunday breakfast, the table cloth was always put carefully away, wrapped in tissue paper til the next Sunday, after being washed by hand and dried on the clothesline stretched over the garden. Many times, little Lily had said to her grandmother: “Why do you smile when you’re ironing the tablecloth grandmother?”  

“Well...." and then she would tell me again how grandfather had saved secretly to buy her the linen table cloth because they had few pieces of finery in their early home. Her grandfather knew how much she had missed fine linens and bone china from her childhood home. As her gentle voice rose and fell with the story, sometimes a single tear would roll down her cheek. Over the years the tablecloth began to be used on any weekday. No one really knows why, but I suppose over time the magic of that first Sunday morning got lost in the burns and tea stains on the ecru tablecloth with pretty red decorations. Those special Sunday breakfasts had stopped as well. When my grandmother died the table cloth was given to me.

Now here it was in my hands again. Soiled, torn and wrinkled.  Picked up from the floor where it had lain, a non-decript rag needing washing or throwing out. I  washed it, dried it and ironed it. Each spot and stain, like the wrinkles on my hands and face showed a lifetime of work and enjoyment. Digging through tubes of saved wrapping paper, I found white tissue paper, wrapped grandmother's tablecloth carefully and put it away with my sewing. It would be part of pillow covers I was making. The story of my grandmother’s ecru tablecloth would be stitched into my granddaughter's going away gift.

“Adversity, and perseverance and these things can shape you. 

They can give you a value and a self-esteem that is priceless.”

~ Scott Hamilton

Author's note: Based on real events