I am a “tight” knitter: my stitches are tight.  I have to remind myself to ease up on the tension of the yarn; relax my fingers and my mind.  I knit a cap for CS years ago, and it was a big hit.  It was a straight knit 4, purl 4 pattern, your typical skull cap.  Several friends wanted me to knit one for them.  I was happy to oblige.

The day I was given the (erroneous) news that I had a severe infertility problem, I boarded a plane for a weekend in New York.  That flight was delayed and we sat on the tarmac for what seemed like hours.  I was working on one of those skull caps for a friend.  My gauge was off.  Way off.  I knit several inches worth then ripped back to nothing at least four times sitting on that miserable tarmac.  All the while, my ears were plugged into my iPod listening to Bob Dylan.  And tears ran down my cheeks.  I couldn’t bother with what the 50-something business man thought sitting next to me of the mess I was.  What could I say to him to excuse my bizarre behavior?  No eye contact was the best bet.

After a few days, months, I would try that cap again and again.  My gauge was never right.  I’d check my gauge before starting, a task I loathe, and still seemed off.  I ripped out this cap another four or so times.

The yarn I had selected for my friend began to show signs of my struggle.  It was fraying, cracking, and in time, breaking.  After a year, I threw the yarn away and decided CS could knit the cap for our friend.  (He’d learned to knit Sun a blanket).

More years have passed and CS still has not knit that cap.  I am now picking that project up again.  I have a new ball of yarn.  Different colors even.

And yet.

My gauge is off again.  The size 8 needles I used so easily the first time are way too big.  Even 7s won’t do the trick.  I will be testing 6s this evening.  And as I knit 4, purl 4, I am reminded of that damn day in the plane.  And the sting of disappointment I’ve endured with this cap.

I am realizing I should have knit this cap years ago.  So now I am determined.  I will knit this cap.  I will exorcise this demon.  I will release that tension.  Once and for all.

The following morning, my sister called first thing with no new news. That, we knew, was bad. I drove into the office in an attempt to feel normal. Distractedly, I did what I could in the way of work. This was interrupted before noon with a call from my sister. She was at the hospital and they had told my family that my grandmother was terminal. Her organs weren’t working on their own and it wasn’t likely that they would. They got my grandfather’s permission to take her off the machines. They kept my grandmother on morphine. They were moving her to a private room and were advising that it could be days before she died. She would not return home.  The bomb had been dropped. I was numb. “You need to be here. She’s asking for you,” my sister said. I didn’t want to go. I had been dropping work since this ordeal began over three weeks prior, and I think I thought that if I delayed going, I could delay her death.

After a brief internal struggle, I grabbed my purse. My knitting was now left in my car due to the fact that I had left work suddenly to go to the hospital enough times to warrant it. I arrived at the hospital and set off for the fourth floor. I had hoped it’d be two or five, a different floor always meant progress. Four was bad; it was a step in the wrong direction. As I turned the corner, I saw my family spilling from a doorway into the hall.

I went into my grandmother’s small room; she was barely conscious when I arrived. Someone leaned in close to my grandmother and said, “Nola’s here.” I moved to her bed and held her hand. I didn’t have any appropriate words to say. “I’m here, Maw-Maw. I love you.” She nodded. I don’t know if she knew I was there. She continued to call for me and my one brother not there. “Nola’s here,” someone would say. My grandfather was nervous. He kept rattling the coins in his pocket. Once my parents showed up, he seemed a bit relieved. After about ten minutes, everyone left my grandparents alone. He told her that everyone was there with her and that it was okay for her to leave us. We then shuffled back into her room. We all took turns holding her right hand. The left one had the IV of morphine in it. She looked very small in the bed.

The night slowly passed. The small room could not hold us all. I went with others to the waiting room. I sat and knitted. “Knit, knit, knit, knit, purl, purl, purl, purl,” I repeated silently to myself. My scarf was close to being done. We’d rotate being in Sunshine’s room. As the night wore on, Sunshine began being non-responsive. She also began reciting names. It started with “Albert, Ann. . .” and moved up the alphabet. She could not tell us who these people were. Some names we recognized: family members and friends. Others, we did not. My grandfather thought she was doing one of the word puzzles in her head that she did every day in the newspaper. My mother thought she was seeing people in Heaven. I don’t know what I thought. I did not think it was a puzzle. As she said names, I’d wrack my brain for a piece of the family tree I’d done. “Alphonse,” she’d say. There was no Alphonse in our family. I knew it meant something, something more than random ramblings.

Around 11:30, we gathered around her room and discussed whether we’d stay the night. I suspected her death was several days away and thus wanted to get a good night’s sleep so that I could continue my vigil in earnest. Others felt as I did. My sister could not be pulled away. Thus it was settled that my sister and grandfather would stay through the night and the rest would return in the morning. As I said goodnight to my grandmother, she had advanced a bit in the alphabet and said, “Robert.” That was the name of her father and the last word I ever heard her utter. She died at dawn.

Although I was close to being done with the loopy scarf, I put it away after my grandmother died. After several weeks, it was bugging me and I finished it. I wore it a lot, and every time I thought of my grandmother. And sitting at the hospital.

Time passed. My sister and I took my grandfather out to dinner. I wore my scarf. Weeks later, it got chilly again and realized I had left my scarf behind at the restaurant. I called, but it had not been turned in. I was devastated.  I thought about knitting another one in the same pattern with the same yarn.  But it wouldn’t be the same—I was a better knitter; it wouldn’t be loopy nor would it tell the same story.

And so it is with everything I knit. The love, sorrow, joy, concern that is running through my mind also runs through my hands and into the work. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The next morning, I called the hospital and was told the clot had not cleared and that discussions were being had with my grandfather for surgery. I grabbed my knitting bag and sped to the hospital. I returned to the dreaded third floor. I saw only my uncle, his red eyes indicated that he had been crying for his mother. They were preparing my grandmother for surgery and my grandfather was in with her alone for the last few minutes before she went in for surgery. My grandfather joined us shortly thereafter, and within the hour, more family joined us and I resumed my knitting.

Sunshine made it through the clot surgery very well. The doctor was able to get the clot with little danger to her losing her leg. “She isn’t out of the woods,” her doctor had warned us, but we were in a celebratory mood. “She’s a tough old bird!” my aunt exclaimed. It would be some time before anyone could see Sunshine while she was in recovery. The crew of us that had been there all day decided to go for dinner.

We drove around the hospital and settled on Chinese. My grandfather and uncle each ordered a lite beer, and I joined them. We all said a toast: “To Sunshine!” We laughed and loved and helped each other ease our pain and worry. The food tasted like food would taste if you’ve only eaten canned foods for a month: every dish was better than the next. I was so emotionally exhausted my beer made me light-headed. My grandfather and I split a second beer, drinking them in tall, skinny glasses.

We returned to the hospital and visited my grandmother. I went in with my parents. My father, being the deacon, prayed over Sunshine. I assumed he was giving her her last rites. She was conscious and seemed relieved to have the prayers said for her.

We went home a bit more reserved than we had been during dinner. The euphoria that Sunshine had made it through the surgery had worn off and we were now concerned about the true success of the surgery. The next morning, things were calm and I went into the office and visited Sunshine that evening. It was a long day, and one in which Sunshine’s stats changed very little. Her leg no longer looked like a dead limb, and that was reassuring.

My sister recognized one of the ICU nurses as a friend with whom she went to grammar school. She told my sister not to hesitate to call throughout the evening for any update. My sister did call, and things weren’t changing. This was slowly becoming alarming. My grandmother should have been getting more stable, but she wasn’t.

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.

I finished Scarf No. 2 that I am knitting for Christmas presents. Here’s the one for my 1o year old niece (sorry for another over-exposed pic):

I did something new–I went off the path of the pattern and added a decorative edge.  I dig it, even though there is a “right side” and a “wrong side” and I mixed them up so one end is one way and the other end faces the other way.  I seriously doubt anyone but me will ever notice (and if they did, they may think I did it that way on purpose; and therein lies the beauty of knitting–mistakes are allowed!).

Somehow along the way, I decided to knit two more scarves. So gotta keep going. Then I talked to a friend and committed to doing a hat for her 2 year old and maybe mittens too. Wish me luck because Christmas is fast approaching!

CS asked if I wanted to join him for breakfast this morning.  It was an out-of-the-blue oddball offer.  I jumped on it.  So Sun and I joined him at Le Madeleine and enjoyed a quiet meal together.  Then CS was off to work and I was off to run two errands.

First, I returned to the yarn shop to buy more yarn.  I have decided to knit two more scarves for family members for Christmas.  That will make four (plus one CS is knitting for one of my nieces).  I’ve asked what the recipients’ favorite colors were and damned if three didn’t say pink.  Pink.  Oh gracious me.  Having recently had a baby girl, I am up to my eyeballs in pink.  And I like the color pink fine enough.  But enough is enough already.  I think if I cried, my tears would be pink. But I aim to please, so if it’s pink they want, it’s pink they’ll get.

Then I returned to Nor-Joe’s to pick up more of their Gorgonzola stuffed olives.  Hot damn those are tasty!

Sun and I returned home and she went down for a 2+ hour nap.  Everything here is just pinky.

Prior to having Sun, I’d spend my Saturdays in a leisurely fashion. I’d sleep in, then maybe run some errands or clean up or meet with friends. My days were often spent with Captain Sarcastic. As evening approached, we’d get ready for whatever we had going on for Saturday night–usually involving food and friends again.

Now that I have Sun, and the hubs and I are adjusting our work schedules to keep her out of day care, my Saturdays have a different feel. First, CS works most Saturdays so I am without him. Second, sleep in? What’s that? I am up no later than 7am. Errands? Yeah, major pain in the arse with a baby in an infant carrier. So those tend to get cut out. If I need groceries or dry cleaning, I need to coordinate getting those items during the week when CS has Sun.

I spend a lot more time at home now on the weekends. And I like spending time home, but I am ready to start getting back into my old regime. Sun is getting to an age where she does okay out and about.

So today, here are my plans:

1. Brunch with my girlfriends. We are returning to Dante’s Kitchen. I am really looking forward to this.
2. Road trip with said girlfriends back to LaPlace to get more meat for the holidays. My brother in Houston, who we’ll be seeing next week, has requested hog’s head cheese. I’ll also get some for gifts for my grandfather and uncle. That qualifies as a handmade gift, don’t you think?
3. Return home to rest. Knit. Read newspaper. Straighten up around the house.
4. Attempt to make plans with other friends for dinner.

Sun will accompany me all day. Wish me well as I bite off maybe more than I can chew as I try to make my new Saturdays feel like my old ones.

As Christmas approaches and I find myself more on the ball than I usually am (how can I say that with a five-month old??), I have made a big decision. This is THE year! The year I vow to MAKE all of my own Christmas presents, or at the least buy handmade items.

So far, I’ve made a scarf for a five year old:

and have bought the yarn to make two more scarves for my nieces. And I’ve bought these two items from a local artist for others on my list:

And with my dreams of a successful cookie exchange, I hope to add baked items to my list of homemade goodies.

I’m curious to see how far I can make it. . . . Will I end up knitting toilet paper doilies? Will I venture into making jewelry with dried macaroni? Will my KitchenAid burn up with all the cookies I’ll be baking? I’ll keep you posted!

I started working on my new knitting project on Saturday–Baby Mary Jane Booties for Sun. The left bootie went very well and flew of my needles. The right? Not so right. I misread the instructions and knitted a second left one. So I ripped back and re-did part of it. I have been told that the measure of a good knitter is the lack of fear in ripping back bad knitting. If that is the case, then I must be a great knitter, indeed! After three rip-backs, I was so disenchanted with the right one, I did the unthinkable. I ripped the whole thing apart (they call this “frogging” in knitting) and started completely over. So my left one was finished Sunday and my right one was finished last night. With no further ado, I give you my first baby booties: