Separations

When I slipped my arms into my red shirt this morning, I noticed that all the buttons were missing.

Does anyone do mending anymore? My clothing hangs on the rail empty and missing buttons or having rips. I still collect the buttons that come with things—that little packet wrapped in plastic with the exact same buttons as the garment. In fact, I have several button boxes: the silk, padded view of some ladies and gents riding horses or the tin container that had all the loose ones, plebian circles for men’s shirts, or mother-of-pearl for the white silk blouses Mom wore to work. My saved buttons are from that far-away memory of saving string, aluminum foil, and rubber bands during the war years of the forties. 

The last time I remember sewing on a button, it was a emerald green satin blouse. Of course I had the matching packet in my button box and sat down with my sewing basket to do the chore of most women of the fifties.

That last button repair took place about forty-five years ago—I’d just divorced and remarried, wore little gingham dresses and aprons with big white buttons that were usually loose and gave me something to do while dinner was cooking on the stove for the husband.

The divorce came in the sixties and I became a new woman who would never sew anything on a man anyplace. I don’t know why I still have all these saved buttons.