If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know this already. Last Wednesday, my mom had a Transient Ischemic Attack, and Monday she had surgery to clear a blockage in her carotid artery. She’s home now, with what appears to be no permanent damage except that she can’t remember anything from the day she had the episode.
This was the most traumatic thing that I think has ever happened in my life! I see my mom nearly every single day, and I just can’t imagine life without her. Thank you to everyone who kept us in your thoughts and prayers, we so appreciate that.
We see the TIA as a warning for BOTH of us to get into shape, stop our unhealthy habits, and get some exercise! We were really given a second chance, and I can’t tell you how grateful we all are that it wasn’t more serious.
On Thursday, the day after she was admitted I was packing up a bag for myself to take over to her and Nathan suggested that I put in some yarn and needles for my mom. Great Idea!! With all she’d been through, it really did help her to keep her hands and her mind busy, and to feel productive even though she had to stay in bed. We spent long hours together in hospital knitting. I kept thinking of that Elizabeth Zimmermann quotation, “Knit on, with confidence and hope through all crises.”
She worked on single-skein scarves (and finished THREE of them)and I cast on for an off-the-cuff shawl.
I’m just finishing up my summer Design Your Own Shawl workshop, and so I’ve got shawls on the brain. I ended up with kind of a hybrid of the types of shawls that we’ve talked about knitting. It starts out as the typical two-triangle shawl, with an increase point down the middle and a few hopeful little flower motifs knit in, and then turns into two ruffled sections with increases spread out over them.
This is truly a prayer shawl, as the whole time I worked on it, I was hoping and praying that Mom would come out of this ok. I used an ombre-dyed sock yarn called Nightfall from Fibro Fibers. (My color is cherry.) I’d been saving this yarn for something special, and used it for this in hopes that I’d start knitting through this dark situation and come out into the light in the end. And I did!
