A Sock and the Titanic

This morning, I threw away a sock with a hole in it. It was a rather large hole, mind you, indicating that I’ve worn that sock with that growing chasm many times before finally deciding – today – that I should dispose of it. I have plenty of other socks.

 I should have darned that sock, I think as I drop it unceremoniously into the trash bin.

You have plenty of other socks, the morning replies.

My grandmother taught me how to darn socks, I think.

Socks are not very expensive, my lunchtime soup replies.

Maybe the whole wasn’t that big, I think.

            Look at all the socks in your drawer that now get a chance to break free, my afternoon vacuuming replies.

It was a perfectly good sock. It just needed to be darned, I think.

            You had a lot of chores to get through today, my casserole dinner replies.

It feels like I’m disrespecting my grandmother’s memory, I think.

            For God’s sake, it was just a damn sock, my nighttime light switch replies.

But, but, but. There is a growing chasm between my children’s generation and the generation that knew how to darn, and to embroider, and to sew a button, and to preserve fruit, and to change the car oil, and to stay at the same job for 30 years, and to survive a devastating economic downturn, and to fight a world war to preserve humanity against encroaching, insidious evil.

            Did I ever teach my own daughter how to darn a sock?

 Late into the evening, I pulled the sock from the trash bin. I found my sewing kit. By the dimmed half-light, I darned the sock. My grandmother sat next to me, whispering with her soft sibilance, telling me again the story from her childhood, of hearing the tragic news when the Titanic sank. About how an iceberg tore a giant chasm through the hull of that magnificent vessel, and how she wept (she was just a little girl) over all the beautiful things that were lost. My hands worked.

 The sock is darned. I probably won’t wear it again, since I have plenty of other socks. I place it gently in my other drawer, the one that holds my great aunt’s sovereign ring and my rusty Girl Scout pin.