She came by Sunday after church with a kitchen bag full of them. Four shirts, two of them that blue chambray he wore near every week, the collar gone soft as a dishrag. She said "Mama Gloria, let's put him in a quilt," and she had that look on her face like she'd already solved it.

I sat there with that bag in my lap a good while. Half of me wanted to say yes right then. The other half wanted to take the bag back in the house and set it on the shelf where it's been.

Here's my trouble. I've made memory quilts for other people for thirty-odd years. I have told many a widow, honey, cut it, the cloth is meant to go on living. And I meant it every time. But those shirts smell like him. Once I cut, that's done. There's no getting it back.

I don't think she's wrong. I just don't think she knows yet that the cutting is the easy part and the sewing is where you cry.

Any of you ever had a piece of somebody's cloth you couldn't put scissors to?