Staying safe:

Last year at the start of the pandemic, I remember hurrying to the grocery to “stock up.” Lord knows what I needed, or thought I needed: cans of soup, cough medicine, hand sanitizer, Gatorade (in case we got COVID-19, as if that would have helped). Other shoppers, crowded in the store and rushing all around, seemed to be thinking the same thing. We all looked a little panic-stricken. No one knew exactly how the illness spread. And no one was wearing masks yet.

Then we learned the purpose of masks and we did our part. We wore them, and discovered we could talk, and even smile when wearing a mask.

It’s been a long year. During that time I sewed dozens of face masks for my family. I sewed and donated masks to the local food pantry workers, Neighborhood House, nurses, other essential workers and friends. I researched different patterns to find what masks worked best for eyeglass wearers, and what elastic was most comfortable. I bought special material, from Day of the Dead to The Grateful Dead, and sold those masks on Etsy and Facebook. Sewing kept me busy and distracted. It gave me purpose.

Grandma-love

Thinking about home-sewn masks reminded me of my grandmother, Elsie Nerva, who knitted for her grandchildren. Imagining her love entwined in all those booties and mittens she made for me (and all her other grandchildren) I wrote this poem:

HOMEMADE

My grandmother Elsie knitted
mittens and booties with pompoms,
a way of keeping me safe and warm,
an expression of love. Every year,
a new pair. The wool warmed my hands
even when soggy from wet snow.
One time an older kid at the bus stop
sneered at my multicolored mittens.
Unfazed, I wore them anyway. Sometimes
I stuffed them inside other, bigger mittens.
I even sewed patches on the slippers
when I wore holes in them.

I saved the soft yellow booties
Elsie knitted for my firstborn.

Both grandmother and son are gone.
I wonder if my grandchildren will save
the face masks with purple flowers,
butterflies and Pokémon that I sew
for them. The stakes are so much higher
now for grandmothers.

Hope and Vaccines

Now, with several vaccines, we have hope, even if we’ll need boosters for variants. I understand effective treatments for COVID-19 are in the works, as well. Isn’t it great news? I’m looking forward to hugging my family and seeing friends.

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Thank you for visiting.
Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a wrangler of words and big messy feelings in fiction and poetry.
In the Context of Love | Gordy and the Ghost Crab | Sleepwalker
Love and Other Incurable Ailments, coming fall 2026 from Regal House Publishing
Connect with Linda on social media: LinkTree