I've had my grandmother's church dress folded in the cedar chest going on thirty years now. Navy, little covered buttons down the front, she wore it every first Sunday till the fabric got thin at the elbows. I've been telling people I'm going to put it in a quilt. Been telling myself that a long while.

Finally laid it out on the table this week. Cut the back panel free and set it in the middle of a piece I'm building, that deep navy against some red I pulled from a housedress of hers too. It looks right. It looks like it was always supposed to be there.

And I walked off from the table and left it sitting there two days. Can't make myself pick up the rotary cutter again.

Here's the thing nobody tells you when they hand you a stack of somebody's clothes and call it material. The cloth still holds the shape of them. You can see where she wore it. And the minute that blade goes down, that's over with. Now it's a quilt. It's not her dress no more.

I know that's the work. That's the whole tradition, taking what somebody left and carrying it forward in your hands. My grandmother did it with her mother's things, didn't blink, said cloth is for using. But I keep hearing her say it and I still got a dress sitting on my table half cut.

Any of you ever worked with something that belonged to somebody? I'd like to know how you got your hands to move.