Expert Tailoring

With my mother now gone, the task of sewing has fallen to me, the last in our family line who can sew a hem.  Mom, who was barely 5 feet tall, was always sewing hems. Everything she bought was too short. But it wasn't just hems. She had a sewing machine and loved to use it. When I was a girl, she made me dresses. As a grandmother, she enjoyed making blankets and pillows and curtains for us. 

Her father, Eliseo Lucciola was a tailor by trade, as were his brothers. He had his own shop in Belleville, Lucciola Tailors, and the byline was: Expert Tailoring. Like many men of his era, he took great pride in his work. So sewing was in her blood. 

Princess Ella & Friends

It should have been in mine too, but I lack several things: the training, the experience and the patience it takes for a complicated job. When I was asked to hem Ella's Halloween costume, I knew I was over my head. It was a lovely pink princess costume, several sizes too big and the hem was about 7 inches too long. Worse, it had a flared double skirt. But it was only a Halloween costume so the fact that I mangled the hems didn't matter as much. It was short enough in the end. 

As I struggled with the hem, I could sense my grandfather turning over in his grave. It brought to my mind a time when I was 16 years old. My boyfriend Tony had a new suit he needed hemmed and so I insisted he allow my expert tailor grandfather do the job for him. 

When it was done and Tony took it home to try it on, he called me and said one leg hem was shorter than the other. No, it could not be, my grandfather insisted. Tony had to come to the house and put on the pants for him to see that indeed, one leg was shorter than the other.

This is the problem with thinking you are the expert. It is hard to confess when you are wrong. Being wrong is not what you expect. I must say, it was easier for me to confess to my daughter that I made a mess of the hems because I never expected it to be done well. I am no expert.

Confession is the pathway to our best self. When we are redirected, we can get on the right path to the place where we truly want to go. The person who finds our errors gives us a gift. Because then we can correct our work and make it better.  As long as we live we have another day to do a better job: at being a wife, a mother, a friend, co-worker. Even at sewing a hem. 

When we are the "expert" we feel we can't afford to be wrong, to make a mistake. This is a painful trap. 

There is only one perfect Man, one true Expert, and His name is Jesus. He stands ready to forgive each error when we turn to Him.

That's why He came.  

May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to His people, who live in the light. For He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of His dear Son Jesus, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. (Colossians 1:11b-13)  

Her Ninth Child

My grandmother Anna had nine children. She was born in Italy but came to America in the early 1900s and lived most of her life in Newark New Jersey.  

The first child, a son named Louis, was born in 1905 when she was 20 years old. The ninth was born in 1925 when she was 40. She named him Gabriel after her husband. 

For 20 years, she had babies. In between she cared for them, cooked them dinner, washed their clothes, carried them in her arms. Anna taught them her native language of Italian. She never learned English. 

There were no disposable diapers and no paper plates. There were no clothes dryers and no dish washers. The refrigerator she had was called an ice box, which means it was a box with ice. The ice man would come down the street selling ice. The vegetable man and other salesmen could come down the street too selling their products for the neighborhood women to purchase. None of them had cars because none of them drove. 

Preschools did not exist. The vast majority of women did not work so there was no need for day care. Gabriel was sent to school at age 5, knowing only Italian. In the morning he searched for clothes that the younger four brothers all shared. At the end of the day, the five brothers slept in one room. Louis, the oldest, already married, lived in the house too, in an upstairs apartment with his wife. As the older brothers and sisters married, they would take turns in the upstairs apartment, so the cousins would live with their uncles and aunts like siblings. The older daughters would help take care of the babies when they come. The older brothers would fund the household when their father died at age 47. Gabriel was only age four when his father passed. 

In contrast, I waited until age 32 to have my first baby. When I was pregnant the second time at age 34, I was told the baby was at risk because of my advanced age. We stopped at two children. Anna never stopped. She just had children until her body was naturally done. 

What can we say of such things? Only two generations and look how family life has changed! Mothers complain about how hard it is to have children. And it is hard! Anna, on the other hand, considered herself rich in blessings, even as she lived without many of the conveniences we have come to view as essential necessities. 

Her ninth child was my father. That means if she stopped at two like I did, or even four or eight, I would not be here. All of my family: my brother, my niece and her two daughters, my two daughters, and my three grandchildren, would not be here either. It is a legacy she never lived to see, but it is a rich blessing. 

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him.
Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.
How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them! (Psalm 127:3-5) 

Our generation has begun to see children as a burden, a curse, an unwanted expense, an inconvenience. Please forgive us, Father God! Open our eyes to the truth that children are Your blessing. Lead us to the ways of Life.