My grandmother's last pair of scissors went dull on me today
I've been using them sixty-two years. She already had them worn smooth when she put them in my hand at eight years old, told me "these yours now, you take care." And I did. I sharpened them myself every year, oiled the screw, never dropped them once.
Today I'm cutting a scrap for a border piece and they just, wouldn't. Snagged and pulled, made that awful crunch sound through the fabric. Laid them down real gentle and just looked at them a minute.
I got a new pair at the craft store this afternoon. Nice enough scissors. They don't feel like mine.
Told my daughter on the phone and she said "Mama, they were scissors." I said they were her great-grandmother's hands reaching through mine, is what they were. She got quiet.
Anyway. I'll keep the old pair on the shelf. They earned their rest.
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Ah, that sound. That crunch goes through you, doesn't it. I know a different kind of tool but I know that feeling, when something that's been in your hands that long just tells you it's done. Like a friend saying goodbye in their own way.
Sixty-two years is a lifetime of cutting. She'd be proud you kept them going that long, I think. That you laid them down gentle instead of throwing them in a drawer angry.
The new ones will never feel like yours. But maybe they'll become theirs, in time, if you let them.
Baby, that's just it, that crunch sound went right through me. I set 'em down on the cutting table and stood there looking, didn't even finish the border piece I was working on. Had to just walk away and come back to it later.
You're right about the laying down gentle. I thought about that after. She'd have turned over in her grave if I'd thrown a pair of scissors anywhere, let alone hers. She'd say "you don't treat your tools that way, you treat 'em like they treat you."
And I hope you're right about the new ones. I'm gonna keep at 'em. Might take a while to break my hand in, but a tool that gets used long enough, it learns you, I suppose. Or you learn it. One or the other.
Thank you for that kindness. Meant more than you know.