The Ladies of Thursday

Ever since I was little, the "Ladies of Thursday" would meet in the Johnson-Shaner room at the United Methodist Church in my hometown. These ladies would meet every Thursday morning until 2pm and I would play with the toys in the toy cupboard while they worked on quilts, flower arrangements, paintings, knitting, and any other craft they had brought with them to work on. My brother would bring his legos or Star Wars toys and I would bring my Barbies and we played for hours with our church friends while our mothers and Grandmothers chatted and worked.

20 years later, and I am now the mother sitting at the table and crafting with my mother and grandmothers. My children now play at the feet of this tribe of supportive women, while we come together to support each other through losses of husbands, jobs, letting our children go to college, arguments with our spouses, family, rejoicing in new children and grandchildren, and the selecting of colors when it's time to paint the house. We value each other's opinions, and support each other through years of life experience. It's become our community of mothers who do more than just sew and hot glue, we love, and we nurture, and we scold, and we grow together. I look forward to "Workshop" every Thursday. It's my net of women who know exactly why I'm exhausted. They know exactly why I'm happy and sad because they have been with me every step of the way. This is my village. It takes them all.