The Singer Sewing Machine & Your Journey

As most of you know from reading my posts here, I write after a moment, a conversation, something I have seen, touched or heard. Today, I am pulling from a story my mom had never told me up until this morning.

I was talking to her as my 3 year old son sat on my lap and we laughed about some crude body part joke he has perfected as of late. We started chatting about starting Kindergarten next year and how he and his big sister could (technically) walk to school on their own (as I hid in the shrubbery). My mom looked at me and told me about something she did at the tender age of nine (the same age my daughter will be next year when my two kidlettes take on the three minute walk on their own to school).

My grandparents emigrated to Canada from Malta when my mom was only 7. They didn’t know the language and my grandfather (Nannu) came over first to work on the CN rails for some time before my mom, her three siblings and my grandmother (Nanna) came over.

Only two years later (or so), the fifth and last sibling was born. My Nannu was working two jobs and my Nanna was home rearing five kids on her own. That year my grandmother bought a Singer Sewing Machine. Now, I’m convinced she knew how to sew, knit and crochet at a very young age – all skills a young 15 year old bride would have had to have known. But this machine had a number of new attachments that would make things more efficient and diverse. As you can imagine, this allowed for more homemade clothing, and essentials around the house to survive. This purchase (which I’m sure was a big deal) came with 10 free lessons, teaching each purchaser the ins and outs of such a revolutionary add-on to any family. What was my grandmother to do? She couldn’t leave the house.

At the very young age of almost 10, it was decided my mom would be the one to take on the task of attending the free lessons, learning the skill, then sharing it with my Nanna. My Nannu walked my mom to the streetcar in their neighbourhood and took her along the route to get to the Downtown Toronto location… once. Only once. It was then up to her to get to that location for the next 10 lessons, learn what the instructor shared with all the other moms in the room, take public transit back home and then teach my Nanna what she had learned.

I got teary eyed as my mom shared this with me in her kitchen with my little guy on my lap. I can’t even imagine my own daughter walking to the bus, taking it to a strange place only filled with grown ups, sitting through a lesson and then taking that trip back home to sit with me and teach me what she learned… while watching another four kids to boot.

Now we are faced with my famous question in most of my analogies… what the hell does this have to do with your decision to start or continue your own weight loss journey?
[cjtoolbox name=’SWV Box’ ] [/cjtoolbox]

Well, sometimes moments in life remind us that our own struggles are just a story we are telling ourselves; that there is always someone who is fighting and winning a greater struggle than our own. I can’t imagine what was going through my mom’s little 10-year old brain. Was she thinking she would have rather been playing with friends, sleeping, not doing what she was told to do? I don’t know. What I do know is that she got to the finish line regardless of the shit story she was telling herself. And on the other side of that goal, she shared with me, she entered her first sewing contest making her own master piece of a Poodle skirt. She said,

“I didn’t win, but I made that all by myself”.

This road we are on is a tough one. While there are moments I would much rather be knee-deep in white pasta and chocolate cake, I am reminded that the work I have done and am doing will bring me to a much better place in life. Did my mom really understand that the hardship she was enduring would ultimately benefit her and her entire family? Maybe not. Did I understand when I started this that the painful two push ups my trainer had me do would lead to a stronger body that has allowed me to accomplish great things? I can tell you there’s no way I knew that.

As we make the tough decisions to move forward, as we let go of our past lives, sometimes relationship, habits and expectations, we open up ourselves for greater things. While sewing may mean nothing to me now, I know for my immigrant grandmother raising five kids in a foreign country, that meant a lot. And for my 10 year old mom, almost 60 years later, she remembers fragmented moments and I can tell you, without a doubt, that experience helped her become the person she is today. If anything, that 10 year old girl was taught that confidence in yourself to get shit done when no one can do it is what’s going to get you through in life; believing in yourself when life seems tough is what will get you that Poodle Skirt.