My favorite dresses were created by my grandmother

My grandmother would take hold of and twist the golden knob on the white painted door and guide me as we descended the steep stairs into her basement together.

When we arrived at the final platform, my Bobby (the grandchildren’s name for her) would extend her arm up to tug a string that illuminated a simple lightbulb and the exposed pipes hanging above.

I followed her path to one of her sewing machines and my grandmother would present the chosen cloth. With a determined look and a piece of white rectangular chalk clasped steadily between her fingers, I straightened my shoulders tall and she began to mark and imagine. Using her seamstress measuring tape up against my body she assured me, down to the millimeter, that I was the center of her custom-made dreams. From fabric to style, collar to hem, pocket type to position- each pushpin drawn from her plump cushion kept that idea in place and wove a new connection.

Then I stood aside and the concert began.

The rhythmic sounds of my Bobby’s foot pressed down on the machine’s broad pedal. She issued a powerful thrust of her hand to spin the large side wheel, quickly returning to meditatively guide the fabric through the tempo of the needles — one hidden in the metal arm hovering above and the other poking out from a world below.

She would pause and assess. Sometimes, the line was deemed acceptable and with the snip of a scissor that seam would end and a new row of stitches would start. At other times, her critical eye determined her work imprecise and she dramatically unleashed the bursting sound of ripping thread. After removing the loose strings, she would intensify her attention, straighten her posture, reposition the alignment of the fabric and refashion its path forward.

The blue number 1164 inked on her forearm moved with both speed and measure (The inhuman numbering began at 1,000 and ended well into six digits; my grandmother was on the first official Jewish transport to Auschwitz). Her concentration and whole body invested in this effort. Each flexing of muscle proclaimed, “The 164th human to be branded after arriving at Auschwitz survived!”

As the garment grew in form, she would coax me to try it on, lift my arms in the air and confirm that the tailored bodice left me with a full range of motion. My Bobby would look aside only to rattle and search amidst the round metal cookie boxes that now housed hundreds of her buttons and snaps, trimmings and zippers. A cacophonous percussion in pursuit of adorning and securing her developing creation.

Each stage of the raw garment’s creation was hard for me to appreciate. Then I would watch as my grandmother stretched her own arm deep inside each sleeve to magically turn the whole cloth right side in. The loose strings and methodic stiches of its formation no longer visible, yet having born witness, I knew that behind the delicate trimmings and pleats, her intentional seams remained.

The finale always moved our attention to the ironing board which sat hot and ready. My Bobby’s arm extending back and forth until she lifted the dress perfectly pressed for me, her granddaughter, to clothe myself in her achievement and climb those steps with her to go out into the world and live.

The author and her grandmother, up two flights from the basement in her home in Kew Gardens, NY. (courtesy)