Last Sunday we got in the car and we drove    To the town you were raised in, your boyhood home    The trees were just turning, up on the ridge    And this was your valley when you were a kid    You showed me the railroad that your daddy worked on    As we neared the old house where your granny lives on    She's nearing ninety years now, with her daughters by her side    Who tend the places in the heart where loneliness can hide      Raised by the women who are stronger than you know    A patchwork quilt of memory only women could have sewn    The threads were stitched by family hands, protected from the moth    By your mother...and her mother, the weavers of your cloth      Your grandmother owned a gun in 1932    When times were bad just everywhere, you said she used it too    And the life and times of everyone are traced inside their palms    Her skin may be so weathered, but her grip is still so strong    And I see your eyes belong to her and too your mama too    A slice of Virginia sky, the clearest shade of blue      Raised by the women who are stronger than you know    A patchwork quilt of memory only women could have sewn    The threads were stitched by family hands, protected from the moth    By your mother...and her mother, the weavers of your cloth      And a rich man you might never be, they'd love you just the same    They've handed down so much to you besides your Christian name    And the spoken word won't heal you like the laying on of hands    Belonging to the ones who raised you to a man      Raised by the women who are stronger than you know    A patchwork quilt of memory only women could have sewn    The threads were stitched by family hands, protected from the moth    By your mother...and her mother, the weavers of your cloth