A Prayer For Laundry
Laundry always makes me think of my mom. It’s not that she loved doing laundry or anything – though she would often talk about how much she missed seeing the clothes hanging on the line like “back home” in Ireland. It’s just that many of my memories of her involve laundry or heaps of clothing and bedding. The three of us lived in a two-bedroom apartment and, while I remember my brother’s clothes being part of the mix, I only ever remember doing the laundry with her.
It Sounds Like Such A Chore
While it may sound like a chore, it wasn’t; it was an activity I got to share with Mom. We would collect all the clothes, sheets, blankets & towels from the laundry hampers in the bedrooms and the metal one built into the wall in the bathroom and strip the sheets from the beds. We would pile them all in the hallway separating the two bedrooms and bathroom and spray and sort by the light of the bathroom window. There was a method. Each item was retrieved, inspected, sprayed if necessary, and deposited into its corresponding pile. We had white, darks and lights. We would then stuff the dirty pillowcases with all the laundry, pile them into a rolling cart, throw a laundry detergent container on top, and grab the quarters.
Carts So Not Like Stairs
There was a laundry room across the way, about 300 feet down the path, up the stairs to the outside door, and then a longer set of stairs inside, down the hall, and the laundry room. We didn’t use that one. The other laundry room required us to walk out the front of our building, up a slight hill, turn left down a slight hill, then left again at a much steeper hill, hang a right, drop down one stair, down the hall into the laundry room. It was a bit farther, and there were hills, but only a couple of stairs. It was a large well-lit laundry room, and it had a bin set aside for used dryer sheets. Mom never bought dryer sheets – she would grab them from the used bin. We would then load up the washers, deposit our quarters, check the time and leave.
The Best Part
It’s hard to pin down the best part of laundry day. It could be the laughter and chit-chat over the sorting or the way the sunshine lit up Mom’s face. But I think it was the folding. There was a large table in the laundry room, and when we would return after a quick trip to switch the washing into the dryers, it was time to fold. There was a method to this as well. The two of us would pull the drying from the machine, put it in the rolling cart, and move it close to the table. Each item was meticulously folded since we all hated ironing. A little bit of extra effort on one end meant none on the other. Towels, sheets, fitted sheets, my clothes, brother’s clothes, and mom’s clothes all had their own piles. The pillowcases were left to put the neatly folded clean laundry back into for the trip home.
The Perfect Fidget Spinner
Laundry was the perfect chatting activity. Your hands could stay busy without having to really spend any thought on what they were doing while allowing you to engage in delightful conversation with someone you loved fully. When I thought about the reading today, I thought about Phil 1:3 – I thank my God every time I remember you. So I do, and my prayer for laundry is that you also have someone you remember doing the simple things in life with too.
40-Day Challenge: Reading
John 5:24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.