The Thread between Mother and Daughter


J. M. W. Silver, "A Japanese Wedding" (19th c.)

Sue Schmidt, a regular respondent to Better Living through Beowulf, wrote the following post on the occasion of her daughter’s wedding, which originally appeared on her blog Let’s Choose Joy. The poem helps her articulate the depth of her bond with her daughter and her sense that the two will stay connected, even though her daughter is departing.  The seeming contradiction–the mother who weeps about losing her daughter is sewing the slippers she will wear to walk away–is at the heart of parent-child relations.  Since I recently learned that my own son will be getting married, I am suddenly more than a little interested in such discussions.

One of the most gratifying things about my son’s marriage proposal is how happy it has made my future daughter-in-law. Candice is a luminescent woman anyway, but over the past week she has been almost literally glowing.   It brings to mind that most joyous of moments in the world’s most beloved romance novel, which I suspect I don’t need to identify for you:

“I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.”

This is, of course, Elizabeth Bennett writing to her aunt Mrs. Gardener.

Incidentally, the friend who told Sue about the Janice Mirikitani poem is another regular respondent. Farida Bag of Uganda has a remarkable ability to find poems for all occasions.

By Sue Schmidt

A friend sent me this poem on the occasion of our daughter’s wedding. I love the image of the thread, which is similar but not quite the same as that of apron strings. Although both threads and aprons hearken to the domestic arts that often bind mother and daughter together, the red thread seems more beautiful and poignant, tying as it does the early memories of childhood jackets and unbound feet with the weaving of the actual shoes which her daughter will wear as she leaves her family home.

Although I did not make my daughter’s wedding shoes (she chose to walk barefooted down the grassy aisle) I did pull out needle and thread to make some alterations in the sleeves of her wedding dress. Like the mother in the poem, I was complicit in her departure. But this was not the first time. As mothers (and fathers) we nuture our children so that they may leave us. We train and encourage, challenge and give. In this we weave the shoes they wear to go into the world, whether sons or daughters, into marriage or as single adults.

We trust that these threads of love will keep us connected no matter where our children will go. I don’t know what the new relationship with my daughter will look like, or, for that matter, the relationship that will develop with my new son-in-law. But I trust there are ways to weave new patterns of love into our expanded family. Because truly, I can’t imagine not sewing.

For a Daughter Who Leaves

by Janice Mirikitani

“More than gems in my comb box
shaped by the
God of the Sea, I prize you, my daughter. . .”
-Lady Otomo, 8th century Japan

A woman weaves
her daughter’s wedding
slippers that will carry
her steps into a new life.
The mother weeps alone
into her jeweled sewing box
slips red thread
around its spool,
the same she used to stitch
her daughter’s first silk jacket
embroidered with turtles
that would bring luck, long life.
She remembers all the steps
taken by her daughter’s
unbound quick feet:
dancing on the stones
of the yard among yellow
butterflies and white breasted sparrows.
And she grew, legs strong
body long, mind
independent.
Now she captures all eyes
with her hair combed smooth
and her hips gently
swaying like bamboo.
The woman
spins her thread
from the spool of her heart,
knotted to her daughter’s
departing
wedding slippers.

 

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