Sunrise, sunset-

Since finding each other on FaceBook, my friend Elaine and I kept up with our life’s milestones. She told me last year that her first born son, Andrew was planning to get married and they would be pleased if I could be one of his “wedding sponsors,” and would I be willing to say something about the blankie.

My friend Elaine and I met moons ago while she was a young staff member at the Philippine Embassy. We both lived in the same apartment building and we became close friends. She was more established than I was; she drove a brand-new Monte Carlo, she wore suits, cooked good food; and we shared our secrets. Elaine never judged my choices and I never doubted hers, including dumping a guy she dated who ran away with one of her friends.

She got married and soon announced the coming of her baby. I decided to crochet a baby blanket for her. I offer that I was and still am absolutey horrific in sewing, embroidery, or any such thing. When I was in grade school, I had to sew a blouse in Home Economics, and it ended up with the sleeves sewn closed on the arm holes. Then I tried my hand in cloth basket weaving; my work looked like a beret more than a basket.

Then, I had a coworker who was crocheting this beautiful blanket so I thought I should do the same thing. Laura showed me how easy it was to crochet so I bought some yarn and Elaine’s baby was my one and only victim. However, Elaine loved me enough to appreciate my handiwork. My recollection was that it might have been pink and blue or just blue but I remember making it and excitedly presenting it to Elaine’s baby. It was small and plain.

Andrew, the baby, loved my work. It was literally, his security blanket. Elaine told me that they would drive back to their house if they forgot the blankie while on their way to a vacation destination. Andrew would not stop crying until he has his blankie. Then Elaine had a second son and her family moved to Florida. We lost contact. I stayed in Washington and in fact had my own family.

A couple of years ago, back in the day when Facebook was not yet in my vocabulary, I used a legal search engine to look for Elaine. I wanted so much to know how she was doing. I wanted her to know that I fared well. I wanted her to be happy for me as I know she would and I wanted to know about her and her husband, her boys and her mother. I wrote a letter asking if she might be the person I knew.

Soon after, I got an email from her then we spoke on the phone; we made plans to see each other soon. Unfortunately, we have had so many conflicting schedules so the extent of our “reunion” was limited to the emails we exchanged. She has retired from the company she worked for so many years, she is enjoying Florida, she and her husband are doing fine, the boys are grown-ups, her mother has since passed away.

In the course of our conversation, we talked about our children and then she asked me if I remember Andrew’s blankie. She told me that Andrew took it anywhere he went, including when he went to college. She said she was sure the only time he put it away was when he started dating; that Andrew considered it his lucky charm. I was so touched knowing that my godson held on to my gift.

Elaine subsequently called me and told me that when she and her husband visited Andrew in the West Coast, she told him that she found his godmother, the one who made the blankie. She said his face lit up and that indeed he still has the blankie, neatly folded and kept safe in his closet, holes and all. He told her this is his lucky blanket. I was silenced.

I could not have imagined that someone would hold onto something as ordinary as a baby blanket made from yarn, a handiwork of two left hands. But my godson held on to it, not just as his security blanket as a baby but as his lucky amulet growing up. I also did not expect how choked I was with emotion as I listened to his mother relating how Andrew particularly felt about it.

That blanket symbolized the time when I could not offer anything of value to my friend. It also recalled well-cherished memories of years when I found a true friend. I am going to attend my godson’s wedding this summer. I am attempting but not promising to succeed in making a blanket for his future first-born.