A Cup of Kindness

In September 2010 my best friend Sandy died. It was a hard year, watching cancer progress and my friend suffer, and her family suffer.

Christmas didn't feel much like Christmas that year. At least -- it didn't feel like I was used to it feeling. The magic seemed to have lost its power. I worried about it but told myself, 'Never mind, it will be back. Next year it'll be just the way it was before.'

New Year's, the last night of 2010, was unnerving. I wasn't prepared for the grief I felt. In my heart I stood before the doorway draped with holly, mistletoe, rosemary and snowdrop, and realized it was time to step through and leave Sandy behind.

I saw the last page of the chapter and the blankness on the other side, inviting me to turn the page and begin the next part of the story, and thought I'm not ready; I want a re-read.



New Year's Eve 2014. Here is the close of a chapter of painful loss and painful growth. Our lives have changed this year -- my daughter was forced to face the reality that a part of her life that she loved, the world of horses, in which she excelled and in which we all took a lot of pride, was actually a destructive force for her spirit. She brought it to a nearly complete end.

My other daughter has spent this year grieving as her older sister grew up and away -- suddenly the 30-month gap mattered in a way it never had before. It's rare now to hear them playing together: more common for the older one to be texting her friends trying to find someone else to hang out with. So the younger sister has been struggling with that feeling of being not enough for the most important person in her life.

And, of course, as the year turns over tonight, we will be leaving my father-in-law David in the past.

There are awful things about being immersed in the moment of grief; the days and months surrounding it are full of hurt and painful introspection. For a while we're in that Between state, out of the main current of the world turning over our private sorrow, reliving all the past happy times, and all the more recent suffering and uncertainty. It can be terrible.

But it can also be satisfying -- meeting our own deep need to come to terms with sadness and loss. As much as it hurts, it feels right. And the memory of the loved one we have lost is keen and fresh, and still very much part of the present.

At first Dad is right in front of you, wherever you look. The last email you got from him was just a few weeks ago. There he is, in the photos you've been meaning to edit from the family reunion. I remember finding books Sandy had lent me, in a pile waiting to be returned to her. It's almost as if your loved one has become a cloud that you move through wherever you go -- a cloud both of presence and absence.

The time goes by until one day, in order to see them properly, you find you have to turn your head.

Now that Dad's last year is ending completely, we'll have to turn all the way around, our backs to the future, and look behind us.

Tonight I'll light candles and think of Dad, and my children's waning childhood, and all my many private sadnesses. I'll write a list or two and dwell for a little while on what I hope will happen in 2015. I'll pray for all the people I love.

As you carry both your happy things and sad things through the doorway into 2015, I hope that you'll be able to put down what you need to. Set some extra weight on the ground and leave it here where it belongs, in the old year. I hope that you've had laughter and tears in 2014 and that both have served you well.

We've wandered many a weary foot. So here's a hand, my trusted friend, for the sake of times gone by.


Be well, and Happy New Year.

Remembrance of Things Past

I spoke to my homeopath last month, and ended up rhapsodising on the subject of ice cream. I guess I got a little carried away, because he suddenly leaned across the table and said "This is your next career."

I laughed in his face.

Nothing daunted, he repeated "This is your calling, I'm serious. Look how passionate you are about ice cream!" Which, in itself, was a little depressing.

But really, he might be right: I can't stop thinking about it.

Today I am finishing off an experimental batch of [deep breath] Spiced Brandied Plum and Vanilla Bean. I got two bags of Italian plums from my neighbour last week, and used a pound or two to make a cinnamony, anise-scented compote, which I then pureed and chilled while I made a base custard with 5 egg yolks and 2 cups of cream. Today is churning day: whisk the two together, add a few tablespoons of St Remy VSOP, and freeze for a few hours.

I'm a bit worried - is it spicy enough? Maybe I should have infused the cream with anise, too? Did I use enough clove? It's all very fraught.

I will take a picture of the finished product to show you guys next time.

The reason for all this ice cream nonsense, and my incredible preoccupation with things like exactly how much alcohol can a custard hold without losing its body, and whether my next boozy batch should have 6 or 7 yolks instead of 5? is that Avery has been on an insulin pump for one week and it has been a traumatic transition. As my homeopath asserts, my consuming obsession with ice cream is just a manifestation of my longing for simpler times.

The pump itself is awesome. The sites are so-so. The BG numbers are HORRIBLE and I wish the docs would change things up so she is not running in the high teens all the time. But it's early days yet, and they need to get some baselines established, so.

Both my kids are terribly sick with a viral cold, and that skews the glucose too. Luckily, the kids HATE my special ice cream flavours, so at least I can congratulate myself, in that respect, for not exacerbating the problem. (It's all for me! All!!)

And, this past week was the beginning of fall and the anniversary of Sandy's death. I find myself wishing she were here again, just so she could feel sorry for us, spoil Avery (her goddaughter), and eat ice cream with me.

DARN it all, stupid cancer anyway.

Seven Hundred Thirty (and One)

Two years ago tonight I was writing.
And this is what I said
The night my best friend died.
And here is what I learned
In all the jumbled weeks and nights of afterwards:
The strength of each day is measured out
And it will be enough,
But only for one day, then
You must ask again.

And some day, surprised, you'll say
'I am happy again,'
Maybe even after just
Two eternal
And momentary years.

Peace Be With You

If you ever came to church with me, there's a bit of the service where the Pastor says "Peace be with you," and the congregation responds, "And also with you." He continues, "And now let us share this peace of the Lord with one another." So we all rise, turn to our neighbours, smile, shake hands and say "Peace be with you."

It's a bit funny to see someone who isn't used to this prescribed greeting, and visibly feels awkward or embarrassed. They sort of glance away, maybe mumble a half-hearted "You too" in response to your smiling greeting.

Sandy came to church with me a few times - once to become my daughters' godmother - and each time she did the cutest little self-conscious giggle when she shook my hand. "And also with you!! Hee hee!"

I remember feeling this way as a young girl, the first time I went to a church where there was a "shake hands with the person next to you" moment...I hated it. I felt like no one would approach me, or if they did I wouldn't know what to say and they'd think I was weird, or stupid. So instead, I decided THEY were weird and stupid. You know - for saying "Good morning" to each other in church. Fatuous idiots.

When I started going to the church I attend now - Lutheran - it took me a couple of Sundays to figure out that there was a loosely prescribed order to the proceedings: they would say "Peace be with you!" and I was meant to say "and also with you." I wasn't sure of this, so I smiled and said "You too" for the first two or three weeks, then sat down feeling oafish. After a couple of weeks I forced myself to say the expected words. I felt silly at first, offering the greeting or the response, but before long it felt okay.

Then it felt sort of natural.

Then it felt like I meant it.

Now, after that five minutes of the service, when everyone has smiled into my eyes and said "Peace be with you!" and I have replied, fondly, "And also with you", I feel it.

I feel peace.

I have been thinking a lot about the deliberateness of emotion. When I was younger I always thought emotion led to the action - so anger led to aggression, love led to being loving, and so on. I hated that trend I started to notice in my 20s - the "love is a decision" fad. If you don't feel it, I always thought to myself, you don't feel it - and that's that.

The part I didn't understand was the transience of love. The way it comes and goes. Sometimes, as a child, let's face it: you hate your sister. I mean, really hate her. You don't love her. And it's possible, as a parent, to wish your children would go away. Really wish it. Wish they weren't your problem anymore...ever. And sometimes you stop loving your spouse because the relentlessness of marriage has stripped away the sparkle and the humour...the new car smell is gone, you've spent too long in there being tired and crabby and impatient, and now it's just endless fill-ups and washer fluid and the console is stuffed with receipts and fast-food napkins.

Twenty years in, I know a bit more about relationships. I know a bit more about myself. I understand that emotions describe a circular path, not a linear one...and that you can jump on at any point in the circle.

Loving someone doesn't have to begin with the feeling. It can begin with the action: the verb use of the word. "I love you" doesn't always mean "I feel love for you." It can mean "I promise I will stay with you" or "I'll never send you away" or "I give you what you need." It can mean "I do all of this for you, without resentment."

You can train your emotions. You can love someone - the verb - and it can become...no, wait: it IS...Love, the noun.

Mothers intone, "Be nice!" to their toddlers. This is the earliest training we get -- our mothers are telling us "I know you don't want to act this way - you want to act another way. You want to snatch things, to hit and to dominate your playmates. But you must DO niceness even when you don't FEEL niceness."

Life is full of these decisions. It takes discipline to implement them; real self-discipline to continue practicing them. They are the basis for civility.

Do love, and you will feel love.

Be gentle, and you will become gentle.

Practice patience, and your patience will increase.

All actions require practice. The first time you did anything, it was hard. Walking. Speaking. Riding a bike. Climbing a mountain. Painting a wall. Changing a diaper. Doing yoga. It only got easier as you became familiar with the mechanics of it, and your brain and your muscles learned how to do it, and then it became second nature.

On Sunday morning I shake hands with about twenty or thirty people; the ones on my side of the church. Each of them leans towards me, offers their hand, and a genuine smile as they say with friendliness, or gentleness, or humour, or quiet firmness, or with love, "Peace be with you." And I lean towards them, return the pressure of their hands, and say with fondness, eye contact and a smile, "And also with you."

The order of greeting has become my choice, and theirs, and what we are giving is what we receive: just what we are offering each other. Peace.

Sandy has been gone for a year. I've written about the way I have grieved for her, and I've said everything I want to say about that. During the past year I explored the process of grief, and practiced and observed the rituals of sorrow.

Some people "claim" a word for a given year, and meditate or dwell on that word throughout the year. Last year my word would have been Sorrow. This year I think my word will be Joy. I'm going to practice Joy and I'm going to practice Peace. I have held Sandy, I have thanked her for being in my life, and I have let her go.

Sandy, Peace be with you. What I give to you, I also receive....peace.

And to you, my patient readers, I offer my grateful thanks. I don't think it's easy to analyse and explore death and grief as I've been doing this year, so I thank you for reading and for writing. The dialogue with you has been such a gift to me.

What you wish the world to be, you must be. What you wish your world to have, you must give it.

What you wish to feel, you must do.

So. From me, to you.

Peace be with you.

3, 2, 1, blast off.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Sandy's death. I just want to share a few short sentences from her last three posts...I was revisiting them each on the days they were written, but saved the last three for today.

I don't want to add anything else...I'll be back tomorrow to close this year out, give some final thoughts. In the meantime, I'm going to think about my friend and remember the last few days with her.


...the truth is that I don’t really know how I am. I don’t know if the chemo is working, I don’t know if the cancer is shrinking, I don’t even know most of the time how I am feeling because so much of how I’m feeling is because of chemo, or the drugs – so it’s difficult to say what part of my discomfort is because of chemo, and what part is because of cancer, and what part is because of being tired of it all, and wanting some reprieve.

Sometimes I feel that I am standing at the edge of the abyss, looking down into the river of lava at the centre of Mount Doom. It is the end of all things. My feet are torn and dusty, my lips cracked and parched. I am tired, filthy, crabby and confused.

My heart is going to break.

But. I am not alone.

Four.

In the last post I wrote about being aware of the moment - how important it is not to distract ourselves from what is happening. That if we are open, if we allow ourselves to Be where we are, change comes - we grow. Amy left a comment in which she quoted the phrase "Beauty for ashes."

It's from one of the world's most poetic and beautiful texts: the Bible - Isaiah 61. Expanded (and expurgated), it reads:
...the Lord hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted...to comfort all that mourn...to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness...that He might be glorified.

I feel better about everything, ever, just from reading that.

As a Christian, one of the interesting - and sometimes difficult - parts of my life is that it is always reflecting God. Even when I don't talk about it (maybe especially when I don't talk about it), even when in my frailty I do a pretty damn poor job of it, I am here to represent Jesus.

There are lots of signposts in the Bible. There is the bit about going into all the world to preach, and there is the bit about forsaking your family and everything you have to follow Christ. Well, the Bible also says that we're all given different gifts, different talents.

It naturally follows that different parts will resonate with different people. Here are the bits I like the best:

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might." I've been doing this all my life. Living HUGE. Chopping wood? Put your goggles on, baby, because the chips will be a-flyin'. Knitting? Hold onto your hats, people, my needles are smoking and I am churning out cables, colours, socks, lace, you name it. Cannonballs? That pool is going to be EMPTY, I tell you. Better move your towel.

And then there's the quote above, another favourite of mine, from Isaiah. "The Lord hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted...to comfort all that mourn..." Can I claim that part? I mean, I'm not a prophet, and I live thousands of years after the man who wrote this passage, and I have nothing to do with Zion, as such, but....this speaks to me.

"Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." This one is tricky. Ten little one-syllable words, but...wow. When you think that one through, right through to all the possibilities, it's actually a little scary. Thing is, in this life bad things happen. Where does my help come from? Well, I choose to call on the Prime Mover, the Creator, the Maker of heaven and earth, who is more interested and invested in me than I have even the slightest idea. That makes me feel okay about the 'trusting' part.

A few days ago there was another of last year's posts to read - fourth from the end. In this post Sandy wrote about going to the school she taught at, to speak to the students during a chapel (it's a Christian school).

I wanted to go to the students and tell them that God is listening.
I wanted them to know that He is working.
I wanted them to see that I am alive, and to tell them that my heart is being healed, and renewed, and changed, and restored.

And that my body still needs some work.

I wanted them to know that whatever happens to me, God is still GOOD.
I needed to tell them that God is GOOD no matter what. Even if my body dies.


"Even if my body dies."

Do you know what's cool about this? And what's important about this? It occurred to me today that one thing leads from another. The amazing and wonderful and intense things that happened during Sandy's last year - how fantastic it all was, how lifechanging - those things came from the spirit realm. Was her death any more significant than anyone else's? In the big picture....No, probably not. Though, to quote again, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." To God - yeah, it was significant. She was precious to Him and He valued her death as He valued her earthly life, and as He values - indeed bought at considerable expense - her afterlife.

The thing about Sandy's death, and the ripple effect it's had on me and on others, is that all the events leading up to it were made possible by spiritual openness. On her part, on my part, on the part of others who were involved.

Her openness to the end of her life, her openness to the will of her God, her trust in His ultimate goodness, created a passage through which incredible power flowed. People saw it, were touched by it.

Even you, reading this blog over the last year, have been touched by it.

I love how, though months have gone by, that power hasn't stopped flowing. The lessons just keep coming my way - little epiphanies keep happening, little bits of my life keep falling into place. The quote from Isaiah, which I've had in my memory for so long that I don't remember not knowing it, has come back to me via my sister-in-law, through a comment on the internet. How weird is that?

And now I'll put those two quotes together.

The Lord has sent me to comfort those who mourn, with all my might, that He might be glorified.

"And I did that!" I marvel to myself. Yes, with all my might. The way I do everything. The way God made me.

You know what else I love about this? The "glorified" bit at the end doesn't have any directive attached to it. Do you notice the passive voice? The passage could read "The Lord has sent me to comfort those who mourn, and to glorify Him while doing it." But it doesn't say that. It just says to bind up the brokenhearted, comfort those who mourn. And He will be glorified.

Because I'm just here to reflect. I'll be open in spirit, I'll do what I can for people with all my might, and He'll make sure that what needs to happen, happens. It's such a relief not to be in charge.

All this time, for the last year and a half, I thought I was mourning. And I was - I am - but I'm also learning. And it turns out that all along, important bits of theology, spirituality, and guidance for my life have been waiting to be revealed.

Looking ahead, I am excited about life for the first time since Sandy died. Not excited about an event, a concrete time or thing that I know to expect, but excited about the big impulsive unknowingness of it all - happy about the way God's plan keeps turning out to be better than my plan.

I like that about Him.

Five.

I was thinking today about the last six months of Sandy's life. It occurred to me that a lot of people miss out on things - critical truths about life and the nature of being human - because they don't want to look closely at the process of death, the leave-taking from Earth, the last stages of the first stumbling journey.

I'm trying out these sentences on you:

The best thing that has ever happened to me is that my best friend died.


The most important thing that has ever happened to me is that my best friend died.


I am who I am because she died.

I'm so thankful that God handed me this gift - the gift of walking beside her, holding her up a little bit, listening to her, watching her turn away, and then throwing her, with enormous effort, into blinding light. How many people get the chance to be there when the door opens and then closes? How many people catch that glimpse through the veil as it's pulled back for a soul to either arrive, or leave?

Her blog continues to be a gift to me. She wrote down a little bit of what she was going through, and although I suspect she didn't share the half of what was really going on, what she did write was full of import. It came from a person already partly gone.

Last June 15, Sandy wrote this.

I don’t really know where I belong anymore. Most of me is still in this world: doing laundry, making lunches, playing with my children, tidying my house; but at the same time, the rest of me is in this new place, a place where making long term plans seems presumptuous, and where I don’t really know what to do with myself. It’s a place of transition, maybe.

Part of me wants to forget that I’m sick, and go on as before. And maybe that’s what I SHOULD do; maybe I should just continue on as if nothing had happened, and live my life as best I can until I can’t, anymore, or until I’m restored to health.


But that seems so dishonest.

Dishonest. Dishonest to go on as if she had never been sick, as if she were not dying.

A lot of people denied that truth. They didn't want to either believe or admit that she was dying. This denial, this bright, cheerful confidence, this fatuous belief that things will turn out exactly the way we think is best if only we have enough faith...it didn't help her. She talked about it to me often. "It's exhausting," she said, "I feel like I'm a disappointment because I'm not getting better."

And then I need to prepare my children for life without a mother. But, I don’t know how to do that either – does that mean writing lists? Does that mean shopping for Christmas presents? Does that mean writing a journal of my life? Does that mean composing letters for every major event in their future? I don’t know.
 
People often said, "God wouldn't take a mother away from her children."

Oh really?

People said to her, "Cancer is not part of God's plan."

Oh really?

Last March Sandy posted this: "We have a propensity to make judgements about the things that come into our lives; to declare whether something is good or bad in our life....we make judgements about what happens in our story based on whether things make us happy or sad. If it makes us happy, it must be a good thing. If it makes us sad, or causes pain, it must be a bad thing.

And, we think we can figure out what it all means.

Maybe God will write some really hard things into my life to perfect my faith.
I don’t want to say that cancer is a bad thing in my life; that it’s evil. I don’t want to say that if God’s big plan is to use cancer to perfect my faith.

I was talking about this to a friend the other day. She lost her mum last February - nursed her through the final stages of cancer. She said to me, "I had 'accepted' that my mom was dying and that allowed me to be there for her and look after in a way that others couldn't. I still believe God is Sovereign and can heal anyone he chooses but he doesn't always choose that. And when we can grasp that we can move onto the next stage in a person's life journey...and that, I believe, is a gift to them."

What a relief, to hear someone else say that - and someone who knows what she's talking about.

When Sandy's life was drawing to an end, when she was suffering, when she was floating in pain and her consciousness was no longer of earth, it wasn't easy for me. Two days before she died I spent the day with her while her husband took a bit of time away. On that day, I messaged my sister and my mum midway through the day. I said "I'm screaming on the inside over here. I don't want to be here, don't want to be here."

But if you had showed up at her house, handed me your car keys and said "Okay, GO!" I wouldn't have gone. You couldn't have moved me with a lever. There wasn't a concrete thing I could do for her but I could sit there in her living room and love her like freaking crazy.

My answer for how to be with a dying person is the same as Sandy's answer for how to BE a dying person.

So, what do I do in this season of transition, or how do I live? I received the answer as I read Psalm 27. “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and seek Him in His temple.”

Simple. Just BE. Find Him where I know He lives, and soak in His beauty.




Just be.

Just be, I think to myself, watching her restless sleep and quelling the panicky, buzzing need to distract myself - do something, clean something, send an email.

But I suspect the deepest mysteries, human and divine, don't often unfold themselves to busy minds.

So be there in love, I tell myself, and let the silence go on. Let the truth be there. The map is laid out between us and we can both see the destination. Why pretend it's House Beautiful when it says Celestial City?

I almost wrote "I wish I could do it all over again," but the truth is that, though I miss her, I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't have her back if it meant she would never have been refined by her illness. I wouldn't have her back if it meant she would be fated for another forty-seven years in Vanity Fair. I wouldn't change what happened if it meant she and I must have continued as we had been: unchanged, ignorant, static.

This week, summer solstice marked nine months since her death. In the confusion and sadness, in the gradual lightening, in the altered quality of my emotions, what comes next?

I know this one. I already know. I had this lesson earlier.

Just be.

And be thankful.

Repeat as needed.

In the year following Sandy's death (it has been eight months today) I have been re-reading the blog posts from her last year here, on the dates they were first posted. It's a small and significant ritual that brings me enormous comfort. She didn't write very often - once or twice a month - so there are only a handful of posts left. The ritual has taken on extra urgency as I approach the last of these messages from my friend.

Am I dying?

I feel like I'm climbing a ladder. Or maybe, more properly, I feel like I'm crossing a suspension bridge. You know the kind - wooden planks laid across a pair of ropes. There's nothing significant about what lies beneath it, except that it's not some sort of great chasm; I see it as more like a river.

I'm looking across to the other side, which is a place I haven't really been to before (though I've been looking at it for some time), and counting the boards I'll step on before I reach the grassy bank.

There are only six left.

Last May 18th, Sandy wrote this:

I panicked, a little bit. It wasn’t that I might die, but that I hadn’t finished something. I had spent hours and hours organizing my house, and buying things I thought my family would need, and sorting through trash, and endlessly DOING things, that I hadn’t spent any time writing anything down for my children, or my husband, or my friends. I had things to say, and I hadn’t said them.

I think everyone knows, by now, that they shouldn't leave things unsaid. Haven't we all seen the movies where the tough guy eventually breaks down because his dad died while they weren't speaking to each other, or where the crusty old man, twisted with bitter remorse, regrets that his children never knew he loved them?

How do you know when you’re dying? How do you know it’s time? Do you wait until you DO know, or do you just start saying things, and hope that you get to repeat yourself?

Sandy was a woman profoundly divided - an exuberant and explosive person who directed amazing amounts of energy outward, and an introverted, private person who obsessed about minutiae and worried about how the world saw her. She drew anxieties inward, settling them in place within her and turning them over and over in her mind. Part of her brilliance of spirit was her ability to make something out of nothing - to expand the events of life, inflate them, change them from the mundane to the marvellous. It's what made her an amazing teacher, and a brilliant literary analyst...but sometimes it damaged her.

And so, maybe I need to start saying some things.

She carried a huge stockpile of emotion around. Most of it, she didn't even know was there until she got too weak to bear that burden anymore...an amazing (sickening, wonderful, heartbreaking amazing) part of her last year was this transformation she underwent, shedding layers of old matter, breaking through the carapace she had constructed to keep her vault secure.

We accumulate so much stuff in this life. So much flotsam and jetsam. So many superfluous items, and ideas, and opinions, and feelings. So many resentments and pettinesses. So much stuff. And for so long we think it’s important. We cling to it. We grasp it.

Watching my friend move away, watching as the distance between us grew wider and ever more impassable, was an odd sensation. Partly, it was terrible. Terrible, in the truest linguistic sense: an experience of terror. There was no reclamation possible - as time went on and the space between us, which had started as a crack and was rapidly becoming a gulf, grew wider, the moments of reconnection were fewer and more difficult to achieve.

And partly, it was exhilarating. Exhilarating, again in the linguistic sense: to bring out gladness. I felt like I was watching someone run to victory; like I had seen my friend suffer through a marathon and now she was on the home stretch, the last hundred meters.

...there is really no planning for this journey. No packing. In fact, I said to someone the other day that I feel the need to unpack for this journey.

The someone was me. We were talking about how weird it is to be together - with my mind on my approaching loss and the ways I might be able to help her, and her mind on her approaching gain. How weird it was for me to watch her go on, and for her to see me recede. She had trouble concentrating on the earthly realm, sometimes. As time went on, I stopped telling her about little things that used to distract and amuse her...she just wasn't interested. Not because she didn't care about me, but because she had started to see this world through a veil. The urgency of it was gone, for her: she knew that all things pass away.

I still saw - I still see - through a glass darkly.

Standing on the sixth board from the end, remembering what it was like a year ago, what I feel is a profound gratitude. A thankfulness that we knew she was leaving, that we got to smile lovingly at one another and say goodbye.

That she got to say things, and repeat them.

That she kept writing a blog - a silly word for an amazing thing.

That every two weeks or so, I'll hear her voice again.

Pacific

That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been.
-Ecclesiastes 3:15

I had a lot of time to think, while we were on the ferry back to the island. We embarked on our 31-hour journey from Prince Rupert in the afternoon, under a cloudless sky. We sailed south past barge terminals, docks, and canneries. Then those dropped back to the stern, and it was tugs and seiners and buoys. Then those dropped astern and we moved on into isolated channels, past narrow coves and innumerable waterfalls. As the sun set, dropping smudgy and red through the clear winter sky behind the western mountains of Grenville Channel, the full moon rose pale and chilly in the east.

It was too cold to be much on the outer decks, but I spent as long as I could tolerate outside, thinking, staring at the steep sides of the channel we were navigating.

Darkness crept up on us while we were still in Grenville Channel. I put the children to bed, and stayed curled on the porthole sill, watching the moon.

I was hundreds of kilometres from the nearest electric light. The ship was barely lit. The passage we traveled was waveless – protected from the open sea. The black ocean slid underneath in a heavy liquid ink that felt bottomless. Above me was the round and silent moon, sailing in her own black unending sea.

For hours I watched it – saw it above, saw it below. I gazed at the coastline, an otherworldly, blurred slash of distant paleness, the only proof that we were divided: sea and sky. If it weren’t for that shoreline, we – the moon and the sleeping children and I – could have been on the continuous inside of a dark liquescent ball.

Bathed in the moon and the remoteness of the night, my communion with the dark Pacific brought a sudden realisation.

Sandy died hours after September’s full moon, in the early morning following the autumnal equinox. The high tide had begun to ebb one hour before - and not long before that, she had sat up in bed and said her last words. I have to go.

Four Fridays later, I had watched October’s full moon rise and thought of how she had left - intentionally, it seemed - on the turning of the tide, the turning of the moon, the turning of a season – her favourite season.

And now eight weeks had passed, and on my journey home from retreat, I saw a third full moon rise.

I know when the next one will come: a rarity – a full moon on winter solstice, the longest night of the year. Solstice marks the time when earth’s life forces are at their lowest ebb. Everything is dead or sleeping. But every day afterwards will be a little longer...our faces are turned towards the sun for a few extra minutes of warmth every day, until finally it will be enough to awaken the plants, and rouse the animals, and break open the seeds lying under the melting snow.

The wheel of the year will turn again.

It has been a hard time. Nearly a full year has passed since Dad came to tell me of his diagnosis, and since Sandy came to me and told me her cancer was back. Now he is cancer-free – healthy – and she is dead.

And we have suffered.

So there is one more moon to come: a full moon to light the longest night – the moon that will close this season of mourning.

The morning after, light will begin to return to the sleeping earth.

Light will begin to return to me.

Last spring, I wrote “I’m lost. I don’t know how to lose a friend. I think the handbook for that might turn out to be short: muddle through as best you can.” Now I’ve lived the end of our story, hers and mine, and I can look back on the last twelve months and say, with peace: I have done well. This job I had to do, this task given me to accomplish, was painful and difficult and it broke my heart...but all I could, I did.

And it was enough, and more than enough.

Now I find, at the end, that one of the most important things is to let go of a thing that is over. To know the job is done, to have experienced it fully, to let it become a part of who I am, and to go in peace towards something new.

There are times in your life that grow you up – push you up a steep and rocky slope, which you have to scramble to stay on top of, and when you reach the summit your hands are bleeding and your fingers ache from holding on, but you’re changed, and stronger, and the view is incredible.

Life is a beautiful thing. Death can be a beautiful thing.

The time for weeping is nearly over. I can feel the season of mourning passing away. I’m ready for the wheel to turn, ready for the next season to begin. It’s an everlasting cycle, and I am a part of it.

Thrice for luck.

Today I begin a journey. A literal journey, this time, to manifest the metaphorical one I've been on this year.

The Celts believed that a traveller wishing for safety and luck should cross three waters at the start of her sojourn. I will be crossing a river, then an ocean, and then a river again. The ocean crossing will take an entire day...once round the sun to accomplish 272 nautical miles.

Travel is always significant. This time, I hope to be restored for the next fifteen days as I stay, with my children, in my sister's house. I hope to come back - again by ship - with more peace, more optimism, fewer tears. The smaller salt swallowed up in the larger.

See you on the other side.

An Adjustment...Step 3.

My beautiful friend. I miss you so much. I know you're gone far beyond my reach now, and I know this message goes out to be unread and unreturned.

But I am writing to you as if you can hear me.

Today is my birthday. I thought about you all day, about how you used to come here with something yummy and with a Christmas ornament for me, every year. That was wonderful, I loved that so much. I turned 37 today and thought about when you were 37, and had your little son at long last. I sent you a card and "The Runaway Bunny". Then when you were 39 I had my daughter, and you sent me a card and "Where the Wild Things Are".

Your birthday is in just a few weeks. I will make scones in honour of us, and then go out and buy myself an ornament that reminds me of you. Maybe a Starbucks one because I love the little china cup you always have on your tree.

I should tell you that I have become great friends with Elvera. She and I seem to understand each other...she has invited me to your old summer camp to cook with her next year, and (this is making me cry for the first time today...) I think you would be so pleased to know that I am going to go there in your footsteps and do what you did. I'm so happy that I will get to be in that same kitchen and maybe learn from Elvera about those roasted vegetables you used to do.

My mom misses you. My daughters miss you. Ian misses you too. He loved you.

Did you see how many people came to your funeral? 662 - it was crazy. I felt a bit sorry for Bryan because I think every last one of them hugged him and cried a little. Not to blame them.

But Bryan's doing great. I'm so glad you got him to the homeopath before you died...it has made a world of difference. He was standing up to people, the week after you left. You should have seen him during some of those pre-funeral organisation meetings - you would have been proud. He was firm - quiet, respectful, but firm and decisive. He didn't let people walk on him. I was proud of him too.

In a way I think he might come into his own, now. He is stronger and I think he will become a different man, a different father, as a result of having to live without you.

Not that I think it's a good thing you are gone. This is my way of finding a silver lining, that's all.

I will never stop missing you.

I want to type "you'll never know how much I love you", but I think I'm wrong about that. I think I loved you exactly the same amount as you loved me.

I have such comfort, I want you to know - such comfort that you and I had something nearly unspoken. I want you to know that I know you loved me...I know you were close to me. Even though we didn't always get to see each other as often, or spend as much time together these past three years once you went back to work, I know it didn't mean anything. Don't worry about that. I know you worried about it, and you felt bad, but I'm telling you it's okay.

I love you so much. I always felt you were uncomfortable with the term 'best friend', but you need to know that I called you that always, and I will call you that always, and that it's not some sort of competition - it's a statement of fact. Of my friends, you are the best. The best, my darling.

I also need to tell you that, because of that last morning we spent together, when your soul was clinging on with the most fragile of tendrils to your body, I do not fear death any longer. You have helped me with my deepest dread. You showed me that I can go toward that moment with certainty and peace. You showed me that pain is fleeting, but acts of love, generosity, freedom of spirit, uproarious laughter, and determined kindness last for a generation.

I love you so much.

I will miss you so much.

I will come and have coffee with you in your mansion the second I get there. Because now there really IS someone in heaven that I can hardly bear to be without.

The world is without salt, my lovely, best of friends. I can never savour it in the same way again.

Goodbye Sandy.

XO
Shannon

An Adjustment...Step 2.

The day after the funeral, people started asking me "How you doing...getting better?" Or, "Now things should get easier." "At least that's over...it'll be hard but at least things will return to normal."

I suppose the well-intentioned but misguided remarks come out of not knowing what to say. After all, what does one do with a person who is sad? How do you speak to that person about your plans for Thanksgiving, or remind them that they owe you $27?

At what point does mourning become a bother?

This process is new to me. I'm not sure what to expect from it. I'm not sure how far my inner resources will take me. I don't know at what point my heart will have had enough time...I wonder when I can start everything up again.

Grief is uncomfortable for a lot of people. They'd like to get it tidied out of the way. I cleaned up Sandy's bedroom two hours after she died, so her husband wouldn't have to come back home to hospice supplies, a rubber sheet, the aftermath of paramedics and fear and horror. Is it like that for people? They don't want to examine the frailty and uncertainty, the damage of death?

I don't know. I don't understand it. But I can see the need in their eyes when they ask me how I am - the anxiety that I might take my walls down and talk about my real feelings. Such a sense of relief when I stick to "I'm fine, thanks."

As a rule, I'm not a sharer. None of those people are in particular danger of having to soothe my sorrowing tears. But when I see how eager they are to pretend it never happened, to act like no one died, I think they might be cheating themselves. Remember Rascal? Every precious page of that beautiful book is a drop of flavour and texture, colour and scent and love. Not because he has the raccoon, but because he's going to lose the raccoon.

I've decided. I will feel the hurt as keenly and as deliberately as I felt the joy and the love of her before. As carefully as I will, sometime later, feel the happiness of remembering her.

I will wait it out.

The end will come eventually.

An Adjustment...Step 1.

It's an odd thing, being without someone. I've been getting ready for this separation for three years...and especially for the last eight months...but now it's happened, I still feel lonely and rudderless.

Sandy and I were close. Imagine something dreadful happens to you - or something amazingly wonderful. Who do you call first? I would call Gwen, Mum, and Sandy.

It was more than help in trouble: more than filling a need. It was a safe place for us both to go. It was a comfortable silence, a cosy blanket, the Food Network on and the remote within reach. Scone day: I know her tea should be milky and hot, she knows my coffee is black and strong. Her favourite Devon cream, in the little glass jar, is $4.49. $3.99 on sale, and I'd buy two and bring them over. I'm closer to the grocery store than she is. I made the lemon curd and she made the strawberry jam.

She likes it when I bring my knitting.

I like the way she says "thinger" when she can't remember the name of something. "Hand me that keychain thinger."

She likes that I recognise all her literary allusions. "I feel like Mrs. Kirk."

We understand each other.

We understood each other.

But my friend is gone.

Absence
I visited the place where we last met.
Nothing was changed, the gardens were well-tended,
The fountains sprayed their usual steady jet;
There was no sign that anything had ended
And nothing to instruct me to forget.

The thoughtless birds that shook out of the trees,
Singing an ecstasy I could not share,
Played cunning in my thoughts. Surely in these
Pleasures there could not be a pain to bear
Or any discord shake the level breeze.

It was because the place was just the same
That made your absence seem a savage force,
For under all the gentleness there came
An earthquake tremor: Fountain, birds and grass
Were shaken by my thinking of your name.

- Elizabeth Jennings

The ending, the beginning.

I've been watching my post meter creep up for a few months, noting with surprise that I was nearly at 500 posts published. I started to think about what I might put up for my 500th post...maybe a giveaway or something.

As the past week progressed, I began to realise what the 500th post would be. I just had to wait for something to happen, and that would be the day I'd say my half-a-thousandth to you.

Today is the day.

-------------------

Five days is not a long time. Five days is how long it takes a birthday card to arrive from Ontario. Five days is a nice stay at a resort. Five days will get you, in your average four-door sedan, from Vancouver Island to....oh, maybe Winnipeg.

Sunday was okay. It was fine - not great, but not terrible. There was an update sent out, saying that she was feeling a little better - that she was not so bothered by this crushing heat that had oppressed her for days.

Monday was different. I couldn't be there, and couldn't be there Tuesday.

Wednesday I spent the day with her. The second I walked into her house, I could feel the loss of what had begun to ebb away. Time to get ready.

And then this morning. It followed a night spent in wondering and knowing, alternately. An hour or so of sleep, scattered by a 4:45 AM phone.

She's in a coma. The ambulance is on its way (I could hear it) and could I meet them (they are coming).

A fumbling of shaking hands and jeans and shoes. A dropping of keys and writing a frantic note for the sleeping household. I'm walking to the hospital.

A block to go and there's a vehicle approaching from behind - it passes and I see a flash of white, a reassuring red, a lit window through which I can see a uniform bent over the unseen stretcher.

I run.

Triage.

"Are you a family member?" My mouth begins what is the heart's truth: "she's my sister" and I note this with surprise before I say, amazed that it should be so, "no....just a friend."

Paramedics ask "what's your name? Okay Shannon, you're taking her legs. We're lifting on three."

Through the blankets what I am lifting are not legs, not feet: they are two rounded, firm hot water bottles, but they're filled with ice. I decide then that this is one of my jobs...I am going to keep my warm hands on them every second I can.

Her husband is trying to listen to the oncologist. He is pain, cohering into the blurry shape of a man. He is running in silver beads all over the floor, an explosion of harm and agony.

This is one of my jobs. When it is time, I will collect him back together carefully.

He kneels. His hand on the skin of her scalp, her hair just beginning again. "It's just that I love you so. I love you so."

I ask the oncologist. "Today?" She looks at me for a half-second, assessing. "Yes. Are you Shannon?" I'm so surprised that she knows me. Everyone I meet today, for the first time, knows me.

Just a friend.

"We have a private room for you upstairs."

"A private room in a Canadian hospital, is that possible?" her husband tries a laugh, through the scream I can see just under his skin.

"For situations like this. I'll tell them there is a big family coming. We're moving you to 3 south."
I don't ask, I just come along. I've got her feet.



3 South

The room number pleases me. 321. Her husband is dyslexic, so I'm pleased for him too. One two three. On your marks.

I see nothing else about the room, because if I am in it, I am staring at her face. I am noting everything, with the intense study of a scholar. I am trying to find her.

I move to her shoulder, lay my warm and strong arm all along the chill length of hers. One hand on her head, I put my face in her shoulder. I smell the morphine. "It's Shannon, sweetheart. I am here for Bryan. Your babies are fine. We will make sure. Don't worry. Everything is going to be all right. I love you so much. I'm so glad to see you today. I'm not leaving."

An elevator opens. My friend's father. He comes inside. He shouts "No." and turns away and shouts again.

"I can't do this."

He doesn't really know me. But I can do something. Now I will pray for him.

I am staring at her face. No one will remember this like I will. No one notices she has not blinked. Her open eyes, thickly coated with yellow, will not change through these hours.

But I notice.

Her husband talks to her. His sobbing is a flail on my heart. I want to die.

"I have loved you so much for 23 years we had together. Remember when we drove across Canada? We had coffee and talked. You read to me. I loved every minute of that. I loved being with you. And now here I am with you at the end and I love you."

I am staring at her face.

People want phone calls made. There are people who should be here, who don't know yet. This is one of my jobs. I can do this. I walk down the corridor and do it.

"I am so sorry to wake you with such bad news. You don't know me. I'm just a friend."

Someone says to me, "Shannon, I need tea. Please. And Bryan should have something."

Be right back. I think there's a lounge downstairs, I'll find a kettle.

I have just poured the last of the water over a bag, into styrofoam, when there is a slamming of a stairwell door, a voice raised. "Shannon! the kids are here, we need you upstairs, they are hysterical."

I run. I wonder vaguely if I can do three stairs at a time - settle for two.

They are here, in the hallway, one just turned eleven and one about to turn eight. I try not to think about her birthday, fifteen days from this day. I can feel the panic building so I push the birthday away.

Her son is sobbing, shrieking and powerless and helpless with it. Her daughter gets to her feet. "I can't stand anymore. I can't stand it."

"Let's take a walk. There's a lovely window at the end of the hall."

Little one, I will be normal for you. Sandy, I can be normal for your babies. It's my job.

And I have not seen her for a while, but I have memorized her face. I can stay in the corridor, because I can see her here. I am seeing her.

There is a friend, familiar to the children, and she takes them away. They are finished. This is too much for them.

A sudden change for the better. She has turned to her husband's voice. She has raised her hands.

I go back inside. Somehow there is only me, for a minute, and Sandy. She is restless, nerveless fingers motioning to the blanket as if to raise it. She cannot grasp it. Her eyes fixed, still open. She must be so distressed. She needs me. I still her hands and rest my cheek against her head. "Ssh. Don't worry. It's okay. It's nearly finished. I know you're cold sweetheart. It's okay. I love you."

Her hands lift. She is rubbing her scalp. The motion makes her need to cough. There isn't enough breath.

We will raise her bed a little. We will fold her blanket behind her shoulders.

Her fingers, far from her sides, are pulling down as though to make sure she is covered. Under the blankets she is bare, except for her shirt. I can see she is worried.

I cover her. My hand is on her shoulder again and I say quietly, "You are covered. Be easy."

Her mask is too tight. The oncologist steps in, stethoscope to her ears. No one breathes as she listens. She steps back. "You know what? let's take that mask off. There is air going in, but not much. The mask is not helping her."

And there is my friend. Her mouth drawn down in suffocation, her amber eyes open, her pale hands floating.

Someone else's voice. "Shannon."

I do not look away from her. "What do you need?" I say quietly. Where does this composure come from?

"Sandy's favourite Psalm. Psalm 91. Can you read it for us?"

I am standing at the death of my friend. I am standing with one hand on her, and with the other holding her husband's Bible. I can do this for them. She will hear this one more time from me, and if I never did anything well before, I will do this well. How do I put peace into my voice? I will do it.

Because she has set her love upon Me, therefore I will deliver her.
I will set her on high, because she has known my name.
She shall call upon Me, and I will answer her;
I will be with her in trouble
I will deliver her and honor her
With long life I will satisfy her
And show her My salvation.

I am her friend.

I kneel beside her shoulder. I am staring at her face. Her breath is a flutter, a quick reflex, no more than three in a single minute.

I am drawing in what she needs. I am breathing in deeply, the way she used to. I realise that I am not willing her to stay alive. I am willing her to die.

Because I am her friend.

Her husband, across from me, cries. The cancer is breaking him in two.

I am staring at her face.

There is a rush inside me and my head throbs. My throat constricts over words I know I must say, but I wish for an insane moment that everyone would just go away so I don't have to say them in front of anyone else.

I don't want them to hear. It will be hard for them to hear.

My hands are on her arms. Her ear is nearly close enough for me to whisper. She won't hear a whisper.

I don't want to say it.

I love her so much.

I don't want them to hear. They will not like it.


I can do this for her.
It is my job.

I open my mouth. I draw in her breath.

She flutters.

I say it. "Go in peace."


And she goes.

There are no more flutters.

And I have done this for her.

I have been her friend.



The beginning

I laugh. I am so light. She is not in pain anymore. She doesn't have cancer. She is cured.

I say something else people might not like.

"Praise God!"

I get up and I go out to the corridor. I've been asked to phone many people but the first number I dial is my own. My husband answers. "She is gone." My mother is there too. "Mum, she's gone." I get to the end of the hall, right in front of the lovely window. I turn one corner, out of sight of her room, and I grip the handrail. I am on my knees in the hallway, hanging on grimly to the rail.

I'm cracking. My chest is in splinters down the middle and all the pain is going to come shrieking out if I don't watch it.

I get a grip on myself. I stand. I drag my sleeve across my face.

I dial the first number.

A vague amount of time goes by. I have told a lot of people and I am astonished how easy it is. "I am very sorry, but I am calling you with very bad news. I must tell you that your friend Sandy passed away fifteen minutes ago."
I am so sorry to tell you that your sister-in-law Sandy passed away twenty minutes ago.
I am so sorry but I must tell you that Sandy passed away about a half hour ago.

I am back in the room.

I do not look at her face anymore.

I am looking at him, instead.

"I just don't want to leave her here," he is sobbing. "I just need a minute more before I can leave her here."

When he has come out, we go in - one at a time.

I wait. I smile. I am pressing every bit of myself against the edges of that crack. There is a seam of dazzling, disastrous light in the middle of it.

It's my turn.

Even as I put my hand on the doorknob, I don't know what I will do inside. I don't know what will happen.

I step into the room and cross to her. I press my arms against her cold arms. I use every bit of gentleness I have when I cradle her face in my hands. I lay my open palms against the top of her chest, feeling her collarbones and her stillness.

I lift her hand, carefully opening her chilly fingers to slide mine inside.

I kiss her hand.

I cross to the open window and stand for a minute looking out at the sheets of cold rain.

I open it a little more, reaching a hand through.

I don't understand.

My palm is smooth and pale. Drops of water, driven by the wind, splash against it.

I wipe my cold hand against my face.

I cross to the door.

I leave the empty room.


.

Another Sad Love Song

My friend Sandy has had more bad news...her cancer is now in her liver. She's in a lot of pain and will be starting palliative chemotherapy this week. This time around she will lose her hair, so I will be knitting more chemo caps.

This morning my uncle wrote this to me: "...we have a thousand words to use when talking about root beer floats or skinny jeans but when bumping up against the big mysteries we are left floundering around trying to find something to say.

So I won't try."

And neither will I.

Thanks for all your prayers and good wishes for her, and for those of us who love her.

Hm.

Now that I've been nearly three weeks without posting, I'm getting this awkward-silence vibe from the blog.


To break the ice: here's my new haircut.




Apparently, it's been too long since I had one, since I've emailed this picture to probably three people already. Inordinately pleased with this minor change in my appearance. (Same, but a little shorter.) And next time I put a picture of myself on the blog, it'll be one where I'm wearing makeup and therefore actually have features. And maybe I won't use the bathroom mirror and a flash.

* * *

Okay, here's the news.

January 3rd my parents came over and my Dad told me he has been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. It seemed to be stage 4: a biopsy found 9 of 10 possible sites affected. My Dad is 73, and has no real health problems - Type 2 diabetes, which he manages by walking about 6 hours a day to stabilize his blood sugar.

Heart disease runs in his family, so if you asked me what I feared for my Dad, it would have been that. Cancer wasn't even on my radar.

On January 5th my friend Sandy came over and told me she has been diagnosed with lymphoma, thought to have been caused by the radiation therapy she received for her colorectal cancer of two years ago. The cancer is too diffuse to radiate, so she was waiting on a biopsy to determine a course of treatment.

Hearing about Sandy was bad, but so much of my mental energy was taken up with worrying about Dad, I coped with Sandy's news pretty well. In fact, I told a family member in an email, "if YOU have cancer, now is a great time to tell me. I'm on a roll."

I spent the next two weeks feeling like all my life force had drained away. I stood around, looking out through rain-slicked windows and crying.

We were waiting for a CT scan and a bone scan, scheduled for the 11th and 14th, to tell us how far the cancer had spread. Last Tuesday the results came back in - no metastases. (Excellent.) They offered Dad a choice between radiation and removal: he opted for removal.

Dad's surgery is scheduled for February 1, next Monday. Once the cancer is out, a pathologist will be able to tell what they should do next - whether chemotherapy would be beneficial.

Sandy had a needle biopsy yesterday - through her back to take cells from lymph nodes located behind her sternum. (Ouch...) Now we just wait for a few days until those results are in, and her year will take shape - whether it will be a chemo year, or something else.

* * *

I don't want to bring too much of this onto the blog. Not because I feel private about it (obviously I don't) but because I've been eating, sleeping, and breathing Cancer for nearly three weeks: I want to talk about something else. I won't be posting long cancer updates, though I will put a line or two in a post, if something major happens.

So thank you for all your good wishes on my last post - it was really great to hear from everybody. It was a comfort to know that you care.

* * *

Coming soon: more fun, less cancer. Can I get a "HELL yeah"?

Apprisal

Round about the internet these days it's all about resolutions and non-resolutions - it seems the old terminology is passe. New Year, new everything.

I was prodded today to put up a new post. Initially I rebelled - I don't like posting on demand - but then I saw the sense of it...if only to inform you that there won't be regular or predictable posts at Half Soled Boots for the time being. I have received two pieces of very bad news, which I won't share with you at the moment, and they are fully occupying my thoughts.

I hope you are having a better year than I am.

Three Conversations from ICU

First, do no harm. Second, hire a knitter for every bedside.

- Hippocrates (The Lost Writings)

Act I, Scene I.

ICU, two hours after surgery to remove a colorectal tumour. I am with my friend, holding her chilly hand and watching, with her husband, as the surgeon approaches.

SURGEON: So was everybody praying up at the school? Was there an assembly?

PATIENT: [smiling weakly] Yes.

SURGEON: Well, things went beautifully. There was no bleeding at all - it was remarkable. We reconnected it no problem. And we got everything out - it hadn't spread, and your liver was completely clear. You don't even have to have an abdominal drain, or a tube in your throat...I must say, Somebody up there is looking out for you. [Clears throat] We were done early - do you have any pain?

PATIENT: No, none. I think the epidural is working perfectly.

SURGEON: You know...I think you can have some clear fluids. Would you like a cup of tea?

Act I, Scene II. ICU, 1800 hrs. Husband has left, other friend is gone, the green cabled blanket is doing its job, folded over my friend's body and arms. I am sitting by the bed knitting quietly.

PATIENT: Is that your lace?

KNITTER: Yes, this is it.

PATIENT: Are you almost finished?

KNITTER: No, and I'm going to run out of yarn.

PATIENT: [distressed] Oh, no, not again! Did you not buy enough?

KNITTER: The pattern called for 800 yards, I bought 900 meters. I think running out of yarn is just my curse. It's just What Happens To Me...it's okay.

PATIENT: And is that your new sock?

KNITTER: Yes - I started it for Hospital Knitting but I think I should have chosen something simpler.

PATIENT: [closing eyes] No. I like it.

Act I, Scene III. 1845 hrs. I've done half a repeat on the sock, and several repeats on the lace edging. The ICU is quieting down for the night.

PATIENT: [rousing] You should go home to your family.

KNITTER: I will soon...at seven, I think.

PATIENT: I love having you here knitting. I don't feel like I have to entertain you or anything.

KNITTER: Just as long as you don't think you need to be awake for me.

PATIENT: No, actually you're the only person I don't feel I need to stay awake for.

KNITTER: Good.

Several drowsy minutes pass.

PATIENT: [fighting back tears] I can't begin to tell you what a comfort you've been to me today. Thank you so much for coming to sit with me and knit...it makes me feel safe.

KNITTER: [trying not to cry, saying nothing]

Benvenuto a Venezia!

Wellness Blanket
Pattern: none. Closed-loop cables from Viking Patterns for Knitting (Lavold) and Aran Knitting (Starmore). Traditional Aran rope cables from Cables Untangled.
Yarn: 14.5, 50g balls Mission Falls 1824 wool 100% superwash merino
Yarn Cost: $97
Yarn Source: Village Yarns, Cumberland, BC
Needles: 5mm bamboo circular
Finished dimensions: 70" long, 27" wide
Cast on: September 1, 2007
Bound off: September 27, 2007
Notes: Someday I may knit another Lavold chart again, but only if I have in the interim sustained a debilitating head injury which has rendered me incapable of either accessing my own memories or of understanding advice given to me by others, namely my mother or the other members of Riverstitch. In this teeny tiny little chart (the "three-bight happiness" sign shown alternating on the edge) there were two big mistakes and several things-which-could-have-been-done-better, necessitating extensive tinkering. And recall I knitted Gyrid to perfect gauge, in a size which should have had two inches of negative ease, to end up with something that would comfortably fit 1.5 of me. My mother is, at this moment, knitting Liv, a design from Volume 1, which is riddled with errata.



The Starmore chart, however, was perfect. No flaws. Flaw-free since 1999.



I took 8 days off knitting this blanket, due to the sore wrist, so altogether it only took about 18 days. The Mission Falls wool knits up fast and smooth and I LIKES it.


I didn't block the blanket because I think it'll take a good while to dry, and my friend goes in for surgery in 8 days. It'll probably need washing when she gets out of the hospital anyway, so I'll block it for her then. I'm sure it will grow in the process.



I didn't enjoy knitting this blanket, for the first couple of weeks. After I took the week off, I felt better about it - I had gained a bit of emotional distance and restocked some of my optimism reserves. I think it was important to feel as good about it as possible, and I suspect my mental state was what actually caused the sore wrist (which, strangely, didn't hurt while I was swatching for another project during the 8-day hiatus - only while knitting this blanket).

And fall has arrived here on Vancouver Island:
This is a cart return in the parking lot of my favourite grocery store. Nobody seemed to want to return their carts there, though. There must have been a dearth of hip waders worn that day.

Five by Five

Thank you for your comments on the last post. I think it's the first time in my life I read a poem over the next day, and desired to make neither additions nor deletions. Everything I have felt for the last four days is right there, buried in those three cryptic stanzas.

Last Friday my dear friend was diagnosed with cancer. By the end of September she will have had 5 days of radiation and a surgery to remove the tumour in her colon. She will be in the hospital about a week.

Friday night I didn't sleep, so Saturday was a bit of a sinkhole for me, but I drove to Village Yarns and headed straight for the Mission Falls 1824 washable wool. After her surgery my friend will need something to pull around her at 4.40 AM in the halflight, when she is awake and fearful and hurting, and her family and friends are all sleeping in their own beds.

The kind, sympathetic, supportive and incredibly helpful owner had 19 balls of this colour - I bought them all, drove home, and started flipping through the books: Cables Untangled, Aran Knitting, and Viking Patterns for Knitting. I did some haphazard math, double checked it as well as my distracted, exhausted, grief-stricken, fearful brain would allow, and cast on.

This takes precedence over everything else in my life at the moment, so the house is a mess and the lace, four days from completion, is resting for now. I am trying for 1.5 balls per day, hoping to be done in about two weeks. Finished dimensions will be about 28" by 80".

The central cable is just a vertically-symmetrical closed celtic knot from Starmore, and the edge is a mirror-image three-bight Norse happiness symbol on a four-stitch, four-row rope cable. I would have liked to have designed something more meaningful for the centre but time is of the serious essence here and I had to use what I could find that would fit the dimensions I was hoping for.

Originally I had chosen more of a taupe colour, but the shop owner gently suggested that a strong green would be more appropriate for a "wellness blanket" (thank you Karen for that phrase). I think she's so right and I'm glad she brought me up short before I bought depressing beige yarn for my friend's recovery.

I'm trying to be positive and happy as I knit this for my friend. I don't know how well I'm succeeding on the happiness thing but I do know that I'm thinking of her and wishing her healing, and praying all I can, with every wrap of yarn and sweep of needle.