My recent sewing bug has extended to knitting.  Except since picking up knitting, I really have never quit.  Lately, my projects just move really sloooowly.  I am currently working on a pair of socks, my second pair.  It is in a ribbing pattern—knit two, purl two—for the duration of the sock.

The first time I purled, it was for a scarf: knit four, purl four.  The yarn was chenille; it loved being in my hands.  It was hand-dyed, lilacs and blues and pinks. My purls were coming along slowly, and as a result, the scarf was very loose and loopy. It was to be a long scarf and it was taking some time to complete.

The thing about knitting is that every finished piece has a story. That loopy scarf tells the story of my grandmother’s death.

* * *

My phone rang one evening as I was walking out of my office. My aunt was calling to tell me my grandmother had had a heart attack and was in the hospital. My mind felt as though my body had been dipped in freezing waters. I drove home in my frozen state and told CS the news. He asked, “Do you want to go to the hospital?” “Yes,” I said without thinking although my plan upon entering the house was to wait by the phone. “Let’s go,” he said. I didn’t feel CS would want to come and sit for what could be hours only to have my grandmother pull through again. I wanted to go, but I didn’t feel I needed him to go, too. That is, I didn’t feel I needed CS until he said he was going with me. His wanting to go meant it was real and really bad; I cried in his arms.

After I pulled myself together, we hopped in the car and met my family in the Cardiovascular Unit on the third floor of the hospital. My grandmother was still in surgery, and we waited. We all looked like we had seen a ghost but no one was then crying. After an hour or so, the doctor came out and said Sunshine had made it through the surgery. She was in ICU where she’d be watched until her condition was stable. We visited her in pairs that night and prayed she had dodged another bullet. No one in this family had died since before I was born, and it was something for which we were ill prepared.