When my best friend's mother died, we spent weeks cleaning out all her clutter, especially in her sewing room. She was a seamstress by trade, and had made most of their clothes when they were young, including their wedding gowns and the bridesmaids' dresses) One day we found a large box marked "keepsakes". When we opened it, we found a square of cloth from every thing she had made for her kids. They were all wrapped in tissue and put into plastic bags and all had little tags pinned on them, and went back to 1948, when my friend's sister was born. The oldest one was a square of white cotton used to make her sister's christening gown. There were scraps tagged "Kelly's first day of school", "Susan's first easter", it went on and on. The latest was "Quilt for Adam" (Kelly's son, and her last grandchild. She made each grandchild a quilt). That was the last thing she made, because her arthritis got too bad for her to sew anymore.

We all sat crying as we pulled out scrap after scrap of memories. There were some for me, one for my bridesmaid's dress, and one from a skirt she had made for me to wear to a school party, a purse she had made me out of my old jeans, an easter dress she made me when I was 10 and my parents were having hard times. I was the only non-family member in the box, and that day, I realized that she had considered me her child too. All the times I had called her Mother and she had called me Daughter, and I had just thought it was words to her.

I have those scraps framed with a picture of my "Other Mother", my best friend and myself taken when we were 12 years old. My friend and her sister split up their scraps, and framed some with pictures of their mom, and the others, they still keep.

Sometimes, trash really is a treasure.