Fitted Sheets
Can I tell you a story about fitted sheets? I promise it’s not as boring as it sounds.
When I first got married, I had no idea how to fold a fitted sheet. I tried different things, but in the end I always balled it up and stuffed it in my linen’s closet until I needed it again.
During the year I became pregnant with my first, I worked for my pastor’s wife helping care for her newborn twins, prepping meals, and doing housework. One morning as I bent over to pull the laundry from the dryer, I saw the dreaded fitted sheet. I had to fold it—and I knew balling it up and stuffing it to the back of her linen closet probably wasn’t the best answer.
I left it until last. I flipped and turned it every way I could, but it never looked any better than it had in the basket. Finally, I crept to the living room where she was breastfeeding her twins and sheepishly said, “I’m sorry, I have no idea how to fold this. Can you tell me?”
She smiled in that beautiful, warm way and (somehow) continued feeding her babes while simultaneously folding the sheet into a perfect square. I almost felt ashamed for how easy it was.
The next week when I brought up a load of warm sheets to the kitchen table to fold, I knew I could do it.
Except, I couldn’t.
I remembered some steps but forgot their order and forgot other steps altogether. With a huff of exasperation, I asked her to show me again. And again the next week… and the week after that.
I don’t know when I learned how to fold that darn sheet. But I do remember sitting in my own home one morning—years after that dear friend and her family had moved away—and I looked down at my pile of folded laundry and saw that perfect square sitting on my floor. I smiled. I took out my phone and snapped a picture and sent it to her.
Years later, I have girls younger than I, who aren’t married and don’t have children, coming to my home each morning to help me with my housework and children. As we listened to the little ones play in the living room, we folded laundry together, and one of the girls held up the fitted sheet. She looked at me with that gaze I all too quickly recognized.
“Want me to show you how?” I asked.
I held up the fitted sheet and tucked and folded it neatly into a square. With a small hit to my pride, I watched her replicate my movements with the second sheet and make a lovely square of it.
You see, fitted sheets carry a deeper symbolism here. They represent friendship and mentorship, the nurturing love that passes along the hard-earned wisdom of one mother to another. For all the times I turned to my dear friend with the sheet knotted in my hands and asked her to make sense of it, I also came to her with different exasperation over and other emotional struggles all wound up that needed straightening. And in all those times, she came with that tender smile and helped me unravel them. These fitted sheets are only one of the lessons my dear friend gave me and it’s only one of the ones I hope to pass along.
