It is 9 minutes past midnight and Robert is still sowing. He has been sawing for two hours already. By now, he threaded needle 7 times. It is not the first time he tries to repair his underwear. The only brown underwear he has. Every four or five days, he is sowing to mend it as it continues to tear over and over again. Now, his underwear is covered with colorful, thick scales. Colorful, because Robert used up all kinds of thread from the sowing kit.

I feel sort of powerless. I cannot find brown underwear brief anywhere. If I cut it into pieces or dispose of it, Robert will insist on buying new one. And when I say insist, I mean INSIST!

Robert began sowing different items of fabrics a few years ago. He tried to mend the blue fitted sheet he liked. He sowed together two parts of an old towel. When he finished he replaced the new towel with the old one, he just repaired.

A few days ago, he noticed that the duvet had a small hole. Without telling me, he fixed it.

He used to mend his socks, but lately, he doesn’t mind throwing them away. He also gave up on repairing tears in his jeans. In the past he insisted on mending the torn sleaves of his shirts. Now, he is happy to replace them with new shirts.

But the brown underwear is different. For over a year now Robert keeps wearing it, tearing it, and mending it. It became a pattern if not the ritual.

He knows, that we would like him to stop so he hides himself in the bathroom. There, sitting either on the rug or the toilet he continues his mission of saving his brown underwear.

In the past he needed our help to thread the needle and to make a tie at the end of the thread. Now, he doesn’t need our help. He is independent and he feels independent.

I wonder what else he feels when he puts the needle away and drops the mended underwear in the laundry hamper.

Accomplishment? Pride? Contribution? Relief?