Sabbath Devotional :: Legacy

When I was married, my grandmother gave me a quilt made of fabric my great-grandmother had saved for her great-granddaughters’ wedding presents. The fabric was brown and red with geese and roses studding the border. In truth, when I first received it, I thought the blanket was quite ugly. But I thought the fact that my grandmother had saved the fabric and continued her mother’s project was remarkable.

I don’t have many memories of my great-grandmother, but I do recall that she always seemed frail, yet somehow also powerful and arresting. She was an artist. Several of her paintings hang in my parent’s house. She was curious and creative, vivacious and often a little foul mouthed. She had dreams for herself and for her daughter. But dreams aren’t always terribly compatible with life on a dry farm.

My grandmother had dreams too. She had wanted to go to college, but it never worked out. She had imagined a large family with lots of children running around the wheat fields, but severe hyperemesis gravidarum (in the 60s, no less, and hours away from the nearest hospital) made that almost impossible.

I don’t mean to say my grandmother hasn’t had a beautiful, full, exquisite life. She has. She has written poems and songs. She taught most of her granddaughters how to sew and embroider. She reads widely as she passes miles with my grandpa on the tractor.

But also, I believe she is already in the process of passing along some of her unfinished work to me, my sisters, and my cousins. Work like memory keeping, education, sewing projects, service ideas, writing ambitions, and more.

Today, at the conference, I was reminded of my great-grandmother’s quilt, and of Melissa Inouye’s plenary address from last year. She was so frail, and yet so powerful and arresting. “What I can’t carry forward, my sisters will carry for me,” she had predicted.

I don’t believe I can add more to what has already been said today. It was a beautiful conference.

But I will say this: I think we have a work to do, inherited from our sisters, our grandmothers, our great-grandmothers, Melissa, and so many others. It is a work that requires many hands, and the collective optimism and creativity of a whole calvary of sisters cheerfully and anxiously engaged in doing good.

Today, I am grateful for a community of women who stitch their hearts and voices together. Women who are committed to carrying forward this work that is ongoing and never ends. This is our legacy. How sweet is the work.

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Sarah Perkins is the peaceful root director at Mormon Women for Ethical Government.

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