Wayne Lysobey
I was ten. I cursed. I cursed loudly. There must have been a Hail Mary or two said for that back in those days.
I was loud enough that my mother and visiting neighbor Joey came running down to the basement to see if I was okay.
I’m okay. Sorry I swore. I just broke something I’ve been working on all day.
What I didn’t tell my mother was that what I had been working on for hours was a white marble cross I was making her for a gift.
I was worried about you; you’ve been down here for eight hours, my mother said. She talked about it being unusual for a ten-year-old to have such a long attention span. Mom retold that story from time to time over the rest of her ninety-three-year life.
It was 1961. We had a Sears Craftsman B @ I Gem Maker, an all-in-one lapidary machine they had gotten for my older brother. They weren’t great machines; they were difficult to use. They do have great nostalgia appeal now.
My father came up with the idea to cut a cross out of marble to make a pendant for my mother. We had a chunk of marble from somewhere. I was able to cut a half inch thick slab out of the rough rock without too much trouble. Each cut after that became increasingly difficult.
After making cuts with the diamond blade, I would hand hold the wannabe cross against the grinding and sanding wheels to clean up the saw marks and to shape and smooth it. After the last cuts were made, after eight hours in that dingy old basement, with only one short bathroom break - after all that painstaking careful work on a difficult to use machine---you guessed it, it broke. No fault of mine really, the piece of marble had its own “fault,” a weak spot or crack. It fell apart after the last cut. That provoked the loud and satisfying curse, well worth a few Hail Mary’s!
After my mother and visiting neighbor left, I started working on a new piece. I don’t remember how long that one took or when I finished it, but finish it I did. It was the first, but not the last lapidary project I ever did for my mother. It was not the highest craftsmanship, but it was memorable. It was made with love and sheer stubbornness.
I occasionally take that old marble cross out to look at it and remember. It evokes warm memories of my mother and of a determined ten-year-old cursing loudly in a dingy old basement.