A Mother’s Story: Sewing through the Pain

A young lady named Sandra bravely shares her mother’s story of how her mother overcame her painful past through the art of sewing……

It was the week of my mother's birthday. She was turning 56 years old. I could tell she wasn’t feeling good that week. She had worked so many long hours at work and had been complaining of severe back pain. And the phone calls….so many prank phone calls.

My dad had come home one night and demanded that mom and I come downstairs. He had this crazy look in his eyes. I knew something was not right. He began to tell us that he knew that we had been prying into his private life and that we should stay out of his business. He was talking about the phone calls his mistresses were making to momma.  He was yelling and screaming and making threats to us that if we did not stay out of his private life that he would have to put an end to it. Mom was sitting down listening to all of this while trying to tell him that the women had been calling her...or like stalking her. 

Suddenly, my dad jumped on momma while she was sitting and began to choke the life out of her. Her eyes began to bulge out and then they started to close. I knew she could not breathe any longer. She was slowly dying in front of me. I tried pleading with my father to get off of her and tell him that she was not breathing anymore. I knew if I tried to fight him that things would get worse for my mom. I was frozen with fear and I could not move. He was not listening. So I began to pray and ask God to save my momma. All of a sudden he let go of her neck and she let out this loud gasping sound as if to try to breathe again. She began coughing forcefully and finally she was breathing on her on. I looked up and saw my father standing over my mother and he said these words I would never forget "you better not get into my business again or next time it will be worse". He also warned us that we better not call the police as he walked off laughing.

My mom was left with burst blood vessels in both eyes, a swollen face, and neck with handprints around her neck indicating how brutal the attack was. Keeping that horrible nightmare a secret, we told no one because of fear of what could happen to momma. We feared the worse. My father knew a lot of powerful people in our town and telling someone could be worse for both of us. That night a part of momma had died. She stopped doing the one thing she loved….sewing.

Several years had passed and my father jumped on my mom again. This time, the attack was much more lethal and momma feared for her life. She told me that she believed that he would try to kill her if she stayed another night. Quickly we began to make plans for her to escape that same day.  We got her out!! Finally, my mom was safe. 38 years of abuse and it was finally over. But the emotional scars were noticeable. She had stopped sewing completely. Momma withdrew from life and all the things she used to love to do.

In 2012, I convinced mom to start sewing again. I told her that it would be very therapeutic for her. So she decided to pick up her needle and thread once again. I noticed the strangest thing happening to momma when she started sewing again. Tears started flowing and all the pain of the past and abuse surfaced. Even though she had gone through counseling, the pain of the abuse was still there. Only until she began to sew again did we learn of how much she had suppressed and kept inside of her. The more she sewed the more the tears fell. It became so clear to me. Momma was “sewing through the pain”. All of the pain that she endured, the emotional abuse as well as the physical came to the surface. Momma came face to face with her pain of the past through sewing. The more she sewed quilts the more she dealt with the things from her past. She has learned how to sew through her pain.

Momma told me that sewing has turned her pain of the past into hope and love for the future. Every quilt she sews, mamma sews from a place of love now, not of the pain from the past. No more pain but love and hope. It shows up in every one of her one-of-a-kind unique quilts. What was momma’s secret? How did she move from sewing in pain to sewing in love? She told me that she started praying for women who were going through abuse each time she quilts. Each stitch was a prayer sent to our Heavenly Father from momma for the millions of women who have been abused or who are going through abuse. Her hope is that these women are free from abuse and that God will heal them from their past.

You see, every quilt that momma sews is from the heart. And what is made from the heart reaches the heart. God healed my mom through the art of sewing.

Sandra's prayer today is that the abuse stops for everyone who is being abused and that each one is healed from their past. She prays that there is a bright glorious future ahead for them.

By Marquetta Smith, MSSW

Domestic Violence Advocate & Survivor of Abuse

marquettasmith7@gmail.com