A Project in My Dad’s Honor

This is, mostly, a post I wrote on Facebook yesterday regarding the sewing machine base project I did for my dad. I do not publicize this blog on FB. In order to be completely transparent here, I need to retain my privacy on FB. Some of the words below are from previous posts, so if they sound familiar, that’s why. Here goes:

When my dad died he, literally, passed me the reins to my mama, who had been living with dementia for over 9-years by then. There was no time for a service, much less marking his leaving somehow, grieving… My mom couldn’t plan anything, and all I could do was support her, keep her safe from a ferry ride away, and worry. A couple of years ago my therapist, upon hearing this, strongly suggested I do something for myself to honor my dad. She also encouraged me to make that something accessible and actionable rather than something that would become a ginormous project in my intensively busy life. I trusted that the project would present itself.

On my way back from the Island, after mom went into care, I stopped at the antique place right before the highway on-ramp. There was a treadle sewing machine base/table looking for a home for $20. I got my sewing machine fetish from my father. Gardening too. It took but a moment to realize this was what I was looking for. It took a few more years to turn it into a sedum planter. Busy… Dad wasn’t a sedum guy necessarily, but the idea of protecting the top and iron of a discarded antique sewing machine base would have tickled his fancy. He might have been a tad impatient with my prep of the cast iron! I can hear him saying it will outlast his grandkids, but ya know, I didn’t get my control freak ness from my father ;->. That came from my mama!!

This came together in fits and starts, in a day and a half. Some sedums are from the nursery, one is a rescue from my former mother-in-law’s, some are from my folks place on the island, and some from our garden.