The Blanket I Left Behind

After 29 years, I'm finally ready to receive it.

The giraffe blanket my mother made, 29 years ago

Today would have been my father's 90th birthday. He tried so hard to fix what couldn't be fixed between my mother and me, and I've been thinking about him as I wrote this. If this resonates, I'd love to hear from you in the comments. And please share if you know someone navigating their own complicated inheritance.

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My son posted an Instagram reel of his friends jamming in the basement - a reunion with his old high school pals. While watching, I spotted something in the frame: a light green blanket draped over a chair.

Not just any blanket.

The blanket.

The one I’d left behind as I was moving out of our family home 17 years ago.

I can’t say I’d completely forgotten that blanket, because it’s been haunting me with the arrival of each new grandchild. My daughters had received baby blanket gifts, even a special one a friend had crocheted. Seeing the handmade baby blanket was when I started wishing for the mint green blanket featuring a giraffe with black eyelashes and a knotted yarn tail.

When I left my ex-husband, the blanket which had lived in the coat closet never crossed my mind.

My kids are adults now, and their old baby blanket holds little nostalgia for them. But for me, the presence of the blanket was something much more layered.

The day my mother dropped it off, I had a new baby in my arms, and I was angry. I didn’t want to speak to her, as she presented me with what had previously been a much-awaited and already cherished blanket for my third (and final) baby. The giraffe afghan was one of many she had made and gifted to other young mothers, never me.

I had been elated that she was finally working on one for the new baby, but when she arrived with it, we were in the midst of another feud. My mother’s mental health issues had worsened with the years, and things between us were not good. Our relationship was rarely loving, but this day, a dark cloud of pain hung heavy between us.

I don't remember what I said when she handed it to me.. I do remember finding out later how hurt she was that I hadn’t fussed over the blanket, and that my reaction had been wrong.

I was always wrong.

According to her, everything about me was wrong.

Things continued to deteriorate between us, but I hung on to the idea of a mother for several more years. When I announced my intention to divorce my husband, our mother-daughter bond fractured altogether.

Throughout the marriage, she had often made comments about how much she despised my husband, usually when he was barely out of earshot. When I told her I was going to divorce him, my mother became enraged. Her contempt for a man she could barely tolerate, vanished.

She didn’t believe in divorce. She didn’t care if I was happy. She began a campaign to ruin my reputation and spread the idea that I was an all-around terrible daughter and mother.

A friend’s husband got cornered at the local market, listening to a tirade about how ashamed my mother was of me as a daughter. She told her fellow parishioners, friends, neighbors, anyone who would listen, what a disappointment I was.

My mother urged my teenage children to shut me out and to live with their father. I’m thankful that her effort failed.

Some might call me a slow learner. I had to wait for this final betrayal to convince myself that I was better off without her.

When I got remarried, I did not invite her to our wedding. My dad was invited, but he didn’t dare cross her. I had little-to-no contact with my parents, except for the occasional furtive call from my father, who still hoped that my mother and I would reconcile.

“There is no way to fix this, Dad,” I said.

I could not act as if nothing had happened. That was my old way, but I was about to start a new, better way of living.

Not long after my new marriage, my father woke up one morning too weak to get out of bed. My mother never called 9-1-1. Instead, she borrowed a neighbor’s walker and urged him to use it to get himself out of bed. The neighbor’s daughter was suspicious of the situation and asked to see my dad.

She took one look at my father and called an ambulance, and then me.

I stayed with my dad in the hospital where he received treatment for a heart attack, while my mother enjoyed a good old time. She went to a ladies’ penny party, then a bus trip to the casino, and all-around enjoyed herself while he was recovering. When he went home, he was back in her care, and there was nothing I could do to help him.

After my father died of lung cancer two years later, my mother, who had been diagnosed with vascular dementia, could no longer live alone. I took over her care and sold their house and belongings. She lived in a dementia home for the next seven years until her death in May 2020.

Despite it all, I try hard to remember the best parts of my mother. No one is all bad. I know this.

She was a great cook, baker, and made intricate needlepoint pictures. She could sew anything and grew beautiful flowers.

I still have her miniature Murano Christmas tree, which I wrapped and put away yesterday, along with all the holiday decorations. The tree reminded me of how magical she made Christmas when I was young. Every Christmas Eve, as we pulled our car into the garage after mass and dinner, my mom would run upstairs and ring a silver bell; its tinkling signified that St. Nikolas had been there. I’d race up the stairs, excited to see what he’d left for me under the shiny tree.

One really good memory.

It’s something.

When I spot the blanket in the video, relief floods my body. A miracle that it still exists and that my ex hadn’t purged it along with all the remnants of our time together.

I had been longing for that blanket. I wanted to see and touch it one more time. I asked my son to bring it with him when he came over.

“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “I promise to give it back.”

The blanket presents itself as perfect as the day she gave it to me. I wash it in Woolite because I figure no one had done so in years, but the water in the bucket is clean and clear. It dries fast on the line. Satisfied, I hand it back to my son.

He shakes his head, saying, “You keep it! I just use it to cover my amp.”

To him, the blanket was functional but carried no weight. He didn’t need it, but I did.

This time, I am grateful for the gift.

The blanket was proof that my mother’s hands had once made beautiful things, even when her mind and mouth had created ugliness.

After all these years, I could finally separate the goodness of the gift from the giver. The skill from the sickness. What she could have been from what she couldn’t be.

I wasn’t ready for it when she brought it over that day.

I left it behind when I fled.

After her death, after seven years of caring for her through dementia, after my own transformation into a woman who helps women reclaim their lives, I’m finally ready to receive it.

Her hands made this. That’s real. That survives.

The rest? I left that in the closet where it belongs.

This blanket will wrap around my grandchildren now, carrying forward only what is good.