A Stitched Family

Being a bonus-mom and a mom.

Hello Wildlings,

I am sitting here having just completed the quilt on the left. My bonus son and his wife are expecting their first child at the end of the month and it is a gift for them. The one on the right is one that I made 4 years ago for my bonus daughter before she gave birth to my lovely grandson called Odd - who now has a nine-month old sister called Bim!

Here in Sweden they do not use the phrase step-children but rather bonus children and I am their bonus mom. I adore this phrase as much as I adore being a bonus mom and nana to the grandchildren they have provided me with. I have two children of my own, a son who lives in the UK and daughter who lives in the US and also an extra bonus daughter who lives in Australia but who will soon be moving back to Sweden. We are a family that is spread out yet stitched together through laughter and love and care.

My husband was a widower when I met him, his wife, the mother of my bonus children having died when she was quite young and of course, her children even younger. In different circumstances I think she and I would have got on really well and I have never felt threatened by the love my husband had and has for her, or for her presence in our relationship in a way. I wrote this poem about a year after my husband and I started seeing each other and sent a copy to all of the children.

A Letter to the Woman Whose Husband I Now Love

I never met you
And yet I meet you all the time
In photo’s
In jumpers you knitted
In stories
And recipes.
You stare down at me from shelves
Smile out at me,
You arms around your children.
I walk through the home
I want to share with him
And feel you
As gentle as floating threads of web
Across my senses.
It is strange to sense your absence
When I never knew your presence
Yet I know it will always be there
And it should be
Your wonderful children will feel it
As will the man I love
Sometimes he will not even have to lift his hand
To feel the ache of his loss
The silhouette of sorrow 
Will fit the contours of his body
Other times there will be space 
Between him
And his awareness
Of your absence.
Neither is wrong
It just is. 
I am grateful to you
For helping him become
The man he is.
For being such an important part of his journey
From boy to man
And in being a man
Being a good father
That would make you happy I think.
I know he still talks to you
This gives me solace
I can never replace you
Nor have need to
You were Anita
I am Katrice
Two women
Who happened to love the same man.
I believe you were a good mother
I love my children also
I think I can easily love yours
Not as their mother
They had and still have you
But as a friend
And a woman who knows
How to love as a mother.
I welcome you
As a part of my relationship
With the man I love.
I will never want to chase
Your presence away
Rather feel that the mention of you
The re-telling of your story
Is a gift offered to me
By those who knew and loved you.
Know I am grateful.

It was interesting to listen to some friends reactions to having photos of my husbands first wife on the walls of the apartment. They felt it strange and thought that she shouldn’t be there but I never felt that. The space my husband and I created was a home for all of our children. I had a photo of me, my kids and their dad, (my ex-husband) on the wall. I felt that when my children came to visit, our home should feel like home and their dad was part of that. So, my husband and I stitched not just a house together but a home together, for all of our children - his and mine.

The quilts you see are a representation of this in a way. Each square has a piece of fabric either from the mothers family or the fathers. So the one for my bonus daughter has patches of fabric from her mom, her dad, her paternal grandmother and great grandmother, her brother, her sister, my children and me, as well as patches from her husbands family, his mom, sisters, grandparents etc. The one for my bonus son and his wife is the same - patches from his family and her family and me and my kids. Their children will be sleeping under the blessings of their ancestors and family, all stitched together. In creating both the quilts I used the scissors and thimble of my husbands first wife, as a sign of love for her and so that she was, in some way, a part of making them. She is alive in the DNA of her children and grandchildren, and also in the quilt that those grandchildren will lie under.

I see these acts as a form of ritual and love, stitching meaning into making and making into meaning. I think this is how acts of creation should always be, whether it be making a birthday card, or quilt or the alchemy of taking a single strand and knitting it into a shape like a sock - magic!

Let us stitch, knit, create together. Show me your creations - I would love to see them.

In stitched ritual

kx