Yarn ball and needles with banner lettering

The lace on your mother's veil had gone the colour of weak tea at the edges, so I unpicked the whole border last night and sat with it across my knees until the wireless gave up. You asked on the telephone whether a bride of seventy-one could still wear a dress that old. I told you the thread would decide, not the years.

I found a skein in the bottom of the tin, the cream silk your grandmother dyed herself with onion skins, wound as tight as a fist. It has kept its colour better than I have. Every stitch went in the way she taught me, two under and one back, a little slack so the fabric can breathe on a warm afternoon. Mr Okafor from the post office called round with his cousin's wedding shoes and stood in the doorway watching, then said the stitches looked knitted rather than sewn. I told him that was the whole secret of thread: it wants to be the thing holding you together.

I have put the two bamboo needles in the parcel with the veil, the ones with the chipped tips you always pretended not to notice. Keep them away from the vicar's wife, she never returns anything. Wear the veil on Saturday, and if the lace catches on the car door, don't pull. Ring me, and I will talk you through it.

Love, Auntie Bea