Over the next few days, we visited Sunshine in ICU and she seemed so fragile. But each day, she got a bit more strength back. We dared to have hope. She moved out of ICU and into the Acute Care Unit on the hospital’s fourth floor. She continued to improve ever so slowly. She still had wires and tubes connected to her and was being monitored outside the room at the nurses’ station.  They were concerned with her renal functions.

Over the weeks of Sunshine’s hospitalization, I found it hard to concentrate on any work I’d brought with me to the hospital. My mind wasn’t clear enough to focus on anything but Sunshine and the family. But my hands weren’t preoccupied and they exposed, as well as added to, my nervousness. To help settle my nerves and give my hands something to do, I knit my loopy scarf. Knit four, purl four, knit four, purl four.

After about a week on the rehab floor, my grandmother’s kidneys began functioning on their own and she had progressed well enough to be moved to the Skilled Nursing Facility Unit—floor six. We were elated, and I teased her that before she was done, we’d see all the floors of the hospital. The tubes and other attachments were all removed from her, and once she was able to walk steadily on her own, they had arranged for her to be discharged. It seemed as though we were over the worst of it.

A few days later, my aunt had called to say that Sunshine had developed a blood clot in her left leg, and that it was being monitored. When I got to her bed, I was not prepared for what her leg looked like: a dead limb. Fear and anxiety washed its cold bath over me again. The family bantered and bustled and did not discuss the grave danger of the situation in front of her. The doctor put her on blood thinner and informed us that if the clot did not dissipate by morning, she would need a second surgery. We had to be prepared for the potential of the clot moving to her heart during the night and killing her or for the necessity of the amputation of her leg.

As CS drove me home that night, all my worries and realities of Sunshine’s loss, her very real impending death, overtook me and I broke down. I sobbed uncontrollably, gasping for air. This wasn’t going to end in her returning home like the times in the past. What we all knew as “normal” was going to change. And I couldn’t bear the thought of her losing her leg; I preferred her to die. Her mind was really weak now and the lose of her leg would just burden my grandfather further. He simply would not consider putting Sunshine in a nursing home; he’d get round-the-clock nurses before that. The idea of losing her piece by piece was nauseating. Once home, my eyes were welted and my head was pounding.

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.