Blissful Mornings - The Unspoken Name

She arrived holding nothing but a small cloth notebook and a gaze older than her years.

Her grandmother Julia had brought her before—to see the blankets, to visit the

museum—but today felt different. The girl moved with a quiet pull, as if some hidden

knowing had summoned her.

Sonia was laying out a new patchwork square when the child sat beside her, unannounced.

She did not speak at first. She simply watched. Watched Sonia’s hands. Watched the breeze

lift the edges of the fabric. Watched the waves in the distance.

Then, in the hush of the moment, she asked:

“How do you know where the story goes?”

Sonia paused, not startled, but stirred.

It was the question she had once asked Genhe.

And the question she still asked herself.

She looked at the child—not just as a child, but as someone whose presence threaded

through time. A whisper of Vernardita. A spark of Sonia. A familiar soul cloaked in mystery.

She did not ask her name.

A name would come with stories, memories, meanings.

But this… this was essence.

And that was enough.

“The story tells me,” Sonia finally said. “I just hold the thread.”

As she began to stitch, Sonia remembered that she too was once wrapped in a sacred cloth.

That her childhood, her becoming, was carried by the women who stitched with love and

silence and deep devotion. That the swaddles were never just for warmth—they were for

belonging.

She invited the child to join her.

Together, in silence, they selected fabric swatches from the ancestral collection. The girl’s

hand hovered above each one before choosing, as if listening. And when she picked the

crimson one—cut from Salud’s deep-pocketed apron—Sonia smiled.

Yes, she thought. She remembers.

No words were needed.

The stitching was the speaking.

The cloth was the story.

And though her name remained unspoken, Sonia knew this child would one day carry the

thread forward.

-Bliss Chains Authors