Tag: knitting

Telling our story

by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief, knitting, The write words at the write time

scarfI was at a craft show a couple of weekends ago. The weather was awful–freezing rain coating the icy snow on the ground that fell overnight. As soon as I got through the door, I stopped to shake it off of me. The first thing I saw was a table of scarves and hats, and the small dark-eyed woman standing behind it caught my eye.

I took a minute to look at the items on the table. I noticed a black and white scarf  that I knew would make a great gift for a number of the people on my list.

I asked, “How much is this?”

“Fifteen dollars,” she replied, “and you can pick a free cookbook from the box,” she added, hopeful, hands clasped in front of her.

I looked down. The ‘cookbooks’ were some old cooking magazines from 2008.

Well, all-righty then.

As she was wrapping it up, I was looking through my bag for my checkbook (note to self: Clean this damn thing out!).

I asked, “Did you make these?”

“Yes. Well, me and my daughter did. And then after she died, I made some more myself,” she told me.

What? Oh, no.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I told her, and suddenly found myself hugging her. “Yes, it was hard,” she said, and proceeded to tell me about how her diabetic daughter who couldn’t feel her feel very well had a blood sugar drop that caused her to get into a car accident. “She went through the windshield and died instantly, the…the….” she trailed off.

“Medical examiner?” I offered.

“Yes! Yes, the medical examiner said. She didn’t feel anything, he said, and that made me feel a little better, but I was still pretty sad. Until my birthday,” she said.

This is what happened on her birthday: She and her husband were having lunch, feeling the feelings only parents who have lost their child feel. Suddenly, her glass of water slid across the table. About four inches. By itself. “I said, ‘Did you see that?’ to my husband. “‘That’s her wishing you a Happy Birthday,’ he told me, and we both teared up. Then I felt much better. I knew she was okay.”

Sometimes, people just need to tell their story.

Even if they aren’t writers.

Smooth sailing-not

by Karen, posted in Angels, friends

IMG_9212You know how they say you know when you are on the right path? That doors fly open? The road rises up to meet you? Well, when I decided to knit a prayer shawl for my friend, this is what I expected to happen.

I was wrong.

First, I couldn’t find my knitting (note: expensive) needles anywhere. Any. Where. I looked for hours, then days. When praying to the patron saint of lost things didn’t work, and time was a-wastin’, I decided to order a set from Amazon, thereby saving myself the time it would take to drive to the yarn store and back (where I had already driven to buy the yarn). After a week the package came and, although there was something in the box, the required needles were not. Now time was really getting short, so I did drive (again) to the yarn shop and bought new needles.

I thought it was odd to encounter so many obstacles to getting my project started, but once it was underway I was relieved and no longer worried that I wouldn’t finish in time.

Until I made a mistake. A huge mistake. A mistake I have never, ever made when knitting. I somehow put a row on going in the opposite direction. I have no idea how this happened, other than that it was my first row that I added after getting up that morning. The only way to fix it was to rip it out and re-knit it. Now, I have never ripped out any part of a knitting project without someone standing next to me (more often than not, it was my friend Sheri, who died last year), ready to save the day.

This was a perfect example of ‘feeling the fear and doing it anyway’. I called on Sheri to help me. I ripped. I somehow got all the stitches back onto a contrasting piece of yarn. Then I somehow got all of the stitches back on the needles. Then I somehow was able to recognize which ones weren’t facing the right way and I turned them around as I went.

I completed the project on time so all was well, but still…I cannot think why there were so many obstacles toward doing the a nice thing for someone else. I guess the message here is: no matter what, persevere. And, I get by with a little help from my friend(s).  🙂

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Faith, Hope, and Charity

by Karen, posted in Angels, family

20140215-203534.jpgMy grandmother Emily, my mother’s mother, was the only girl in her family of five. Yep; she had four, count ’em, four brothers. At least, that was what I thought when I was a girl. When I got older, she told me that she actually had three sisters. Triplets. They were named Faith, Hope, and Charity. Whether it was because they were so little when they were born, or that the family lacked enough cradles to accommodate three infants at the same time, they were bedded in three bureau drawers.

Unfortunately, their lives were short. They only lived about three months, I believe, when they succumbed to pneumonia. When she told me the story, I thought: Oh! that is so sad! Oh! There were really four boys and four girls in her family!

I also thought: Oh! I would have so many more cousins if they had lived!

Anyway, I thought a lot about those three short lives. I loved their names. I loved the story about the bureau drawers. I wanted to honor them in some way. Here’s what I do: Every time I knit something, I knit “Faith, Hope, and Charity” into the piece by repeating their names as I knit or purl, so that many times over I have wished these thoughts for the recipient of whatever I am knitting. I hope it makes them feel amazing when they wear it. I hope my triplet grand-aunts in heaven know that even though their lives were brief, all these years later, I am thinking of them and they are making a difference in my life, as well as (this is my hope) in the lives of the people who wear the FHC articles.