I have had my green blanket for thirteen years. That’s right, 13 whole years. My grandmother gave me the blanket, her first and last gift to me before her death in 2012. She sewed the blanket when I was two. Green of mint and white of snow, the blanket has kept me cool during the warmest of nights and warm during the coldest of mornings.  The surface feels like a cool, malleable sheet of metal with just the perfect thickness, like a 5 centimeter tall sheet of powdered snow. My blanket covers my bed and leaves some space for my pillow to rest in.  Through wear and tear, my blanket has kept me company, even when I bled on it and when I cried on it. It has brought me hope during the darkest of times, and love during the saddest of times. It has given comfort throughout my sleep and has kept the demons under my bed away from me.

My green blanket has travelled almost everywhere with me. It took its first adventure in our luggage, when we moved from Shanghai to Canada. The first bed I spread my blanket across turned out to be in a sizable house on Brossard Street in Quebec, Montreal.  The three-story, white brick house included a garage, a basement, a swimming pool and a garden, and my family enjoyed living there. I remember this one giant tree on our front lawn, the one that grew taller than our house, the one that occasionally bore apples that were filled with holes. In my room, the door always closed, my blanket lay on my bed, accumulating dust and the coolness of undisturbed air.

I brought my blanket outside for the first time when I went to a kindergarten called Chateau de Reve (“castle of dreams”) in Montreal. By the time I attended the College Francais for elementary school, I never brought my blanket with me. I didn’t want something so special to get dirty.

If not for my blanket, I might not have survived our first house in North Carolina. Walking across the fluffy carpet that covered the floor of our small new rental house felt like walking on fire. The carpet’s insulation made the North Carolina heat even worse on summer and fall afternoons. Nasty bugs crawled around in our garage. Cockroaches crawled through the holes of the aging house. The flat, bronze insects often came through the garage into the house. Sometimes they crawled upstairs into my room and onto my green blanket. In spite of this, the blanket continued to keep me company for another three years in that overly disgusting and warm place.

After three whole years of hiding behind my protective blanket everyday, I finally moved with my family to a newer and larger home. White and gray siding covered the narrow but deep house. We had space for a garden in the front yard, and a nice maple tree in the back. The house had a back porch, and a black metal fence went around the yard. I’ve yet to see a cockroach crawling around indoors, though a few flies come in if we leave the door open. The  day we moved in, I unpacked my green blanket into my desolate room and slept on the floor with it for a day until our luggage arrived. I slept painfully without a bed, but my green friend provided me with comfort yet again.

My green blanket has travelled with me on countless adventures, from China to Canada, and Cuba to Denmark. Through thick and thin, it has shielded and comforted me physically and emotionally, both as a friend and a blanket. Sadly, I didn't know my grandmother who made the blanket very well. But I don’t believe the fact that my grandmother made the blanket affects the way I’ve felt  about it over the last thirteen years. What caused me to love my blanket for so many years is its texture and usefulness. It’s not so much who made the blanket, but the memories the blanket carries with it.