Blogging, cancer and knitting

I have been found though a friend of a friend and I am doing some Hospice-type volunteering. Many years ago I did Hospice officially and I loved it. People wondered why I did it with six little kids and the truth was, I loved it because I would do things like laundry or make my clients dinner (sometimes feeding them) and it would get done and I could enjoy it being done. With my size family, it takes me two days to do our wash if I don't do it every day. It was nice, and my clients would THANK me and the warm feeling stayed with me for a whole week or until I would next see them. Moms are expected to do their work and it is how it is; I might get thanked, but it was (is) always while the person was (is) undoing what I just did and in spite of the compliment, I felt (feel) futile.

So, this friend of a friend knows that I will be blogging about her and is happy for what I can do. I am NOT raising money for her and she does not want me to raise money for her. You will never get her real name from my blog, She is a lady in her late 50's who has a stealthy cancer. She may have six months to live or she may have a year, depending on how she responds to palliative treatment. The doctors are not expecting to cure her. I am not serving her in an official capacity with a Hospice-- through the grapevine it was discovered that I knit and that I have told loving stories of death. Seriously, I am not scared of it and I have happy stories of the work I have done, unofficial as it has been.

I am making "Natasha" a shawl that she will wear to keep warm for one last season of winter, that she will give to her daughter to wear for her wedding and perhaps wrap her eventual grand baby in. Her daughter was going to move her wedding back, but Natasha didn't want that. She doesn't know how she will feel from day to day and her daughter always wanted a June wedding. Of course she also imagined her mother there which was more important, but Natasha has her own agenda. Things may change, but she wants a shawl to give her to wear, so this is my job.

Why am I, a busy mother of 7 still at home even considering this? Well, this time of a person's life is an honor to spend with them and it is nice, but this kind of work is altruistic and I don't feel guilty stepping out to hang out with this lady and do what I love best, to knit!

I'll be updating from time to time in choosing a pattern and yarns because it is fun.