Chicken soup and cozy quilts

Cozy: co·zy

adjective: giving a feeling of comfort, warmth, and relaxation; such as "a cozy cabin tucked away in the trees" (definition from Oxford Languages)

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How incredibly perfect is this image of a “cozy cabin tucked away in the trees”? It makes me want to be there… to inhale the Autumn air, ripe with fallen leaves and feel the chill down to my bones.

This image is so real to me that I can hear my grandchildren’s laughter echoing as they race through the woods; or as they settle in front of the fireplace with a game. I can smell the smoke from the fireplace and feel the first drops of a chilling November rain as it begins to fall, making plopping noises in the leaves. As I make my way to the door, I know that fresh coffee, hot chocolate for the kiddos and maybe even a glass of wine for later, are waiting just beyond the threshold. I want to be there…

A rustic cabin in the woods, a fire in the fireplace and a glass of wine are all warming images of a perfect cozy day… of being comforted and even sheltered from the cold November rain. In coziness such as this, we surrender to a feeling of well being which causes us to exhale (deeply) in the midst of the chaos of the unexpected of the everyday. We feel we have come home. We feel safe, and with family gathered, we feel loved.

But in the midst of my reverie about that rustic cabin and a glass of good wine, I’m quite aware of one thing — cozy — that little 4-letter word, can mean so much to so many in just as many ways. Even though I would relish every moment I spent in that lovely little cabin, and feel that coziness surround me, I know deep down, that my personal feelings of being nestled against the storms of life stem from my childhood and being wrapped from head-to-toe in one of my grandmother’s home-made quilts.

“a small word that can mean so much to so many in

just as many ways”

Looking back over the years, and now as an adult with grandchildren of my own, I can remember my grandmother as being a rather remarkable woman. Time may have faded a few of those memories and may have jumbled a few others together, but what I remember is this: she was compassionate and giving to a fault; loved and nursed wild animals and birds back to health; cooked church suppers for half a dozen families who stopped by on Sunday afternoons; let us grandchildren sleep over whenever we wanted; and on Friday evenings, when she came home from work, she always brought us treats — ice cream treats! There was no one like her, at least in my small world.

Her remedy for anything from a broken heart to a knee scraped from a fall off a bike was to wrap the bereaved up in one of her quilts and give them homemade chicken soup and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sometimes there were vanilla wafers, and please, don’t forget the ginger ale.

I don’t know if the chicken soup really worked, but the feeling of being loved and warm within that enormous quilt, layered within the fragrance of lavender, always helped to dry those tears and make the scrapes of life “all better”. To the child that was me, my grandmother was love with a face.

My grandparents, Nellie and Elmer Gregg, 1945. He shared a love of reading with me; she shared her love.

In their older home, on the second floor landing and just beyond the first door to the left, was a world unto its own. A small room — about the size of a walk-in closet — with an elf-sized window that looked out, over the roof of the front porch and onto the street beyond. It was also the warmest room in the old house as the furnace chimney ran through the corner of this room, making it toasty and warm. It was a perfect room for small children and their wild imaginations to play. My grandmother called this room the linen pantry. We called it magic.

In this room, she stored her quilts… wrapped in tissue paper with lavender sprigs tucked in… some large enough for a bed, others sewn for a cradle… and still others in the process of being quilted. There were handworked lace pieces sewn unto the edges of pillowcases and sheets, and other linen items — lace and crocheted ones — that always seem to cast their spell over me.

They were all stored according to size, in that magical pantry on a shelf behind a curtain that was always drawn against maurading children playing hide and seek. But this room was so enticing with its long shelves, lavender smells and quilts piled high that it was well worth the punishment just to be there or hide on those shelves. We played games in that room. We hid toys and Easter eggs on those shelves and yes, a game of hide and seek was always afoot.

It is unfortunate that small children do not know the meaning of keeping quiet, do not understand that the ears of adults are forever tuned into the sounds that children make. It wasn’t if we were caught but when we were caught, that we’d promptly be marched outside into the backyard… to the THE DREADED BUSH(!).

In the presence of this old forsythia bush whose branches were more supple and whip-like than I care to remember, we were told to choose our own implement of punishment… and one must choose their punishment wisely unless it be chosen by another who was older and much wiser to the ways of children. Those stings on my legs hurt and caused many tears, not of recrimination but because we were caught — again! Looking back at that time, I’ve come to the conclusion that I was always “naughty”.

Those punishments lasted only the season of childhood, lasted only until I came to realize how important the quilts were to my grandmother. Those beautiful quilts and handworked pieces were crafted and sewn by my grandmother and her mother whenever time allowed… taking good pieces from old or adding something new in a design, and maybe stitching small yellow flowers with love. This was no small feat for them as they had developed rheumatoid arthritis in their later years, which attacked the joints of their hands, making their fingers less nimble for the smaller stitches on a quilt.

All of those warm quilts had a destination. No one was to be left in the cold; for these two women worked and stitched for their church’s missionary union… sending those warming quilts to those less fortunate and to the migrant workers who came into the valley as seasonal farm hands.

Decades have passed and I wonder if any of those hand-made quilts have survived the years. When my mother died earlier this year, there were no quilts of her mother’s piled high in any of her closets. No smells of lavender or chicken soup. Nothing left to tell the story of two women who sewed quilts on the front porch of their home for their church, or the story of a woman who made the scrapes of life “all better”.

Today, when my husband, my children or grandchildren come down with an unknown malady, I will wrap them in my own quilts and throws, making sure they are comforted and warm. Then when all the ingredients have been gathered, a huge pot of chicken soup will be slowly simmering — all day on the back burner — filling our home with delicious smells of things to come. To me, it’s just what the doctor and my grandmother would have ordered.

Story and memories of another time, Cyndy Chisare