baby blankets are like baby steps

I have been working on a blanket, or two, if truth be told. One is a baby blanket for a friend having twins. The other - I have hopes there will be a baby with this blanket, I knit the word "baby," purl "love" into every stitch. One way or another, there will be a baby wrapped in this blanket some day. Mine, his, whose is yet to be determined. But it is a blanket for having a baby.

9 years and counting ----

since my mother died.

The anniversary was this week; a week with many unravels, pulled foundation stitches, dropped stitches & much casting about, not so much on. If maybe, she had been someone I depended on in my life I would have missed her terribly this week when I was struggling to keep everything from coming apart at the seams. But she was not.

And I realized I am a lot stronger than she was. I have been out here without a net, without a lifeline, keeping it together for me kids on my own. I didn't need anyone outside of myself to be strong for, to leave a bad place in order to get healthy, to be on my own.

I am not saying I don't miss her, just that in this crisis I wasn't crying  for my mother. There was a moment when I wanted to call my grandmother & a moment when I wondered if not having both this year would make the 13th that much more emotionally difficult. Those moments passed because I had purpose; get us a place to live, find our dogs a foster home, get hired, pack our stuff.

Loss has become part of life this year, more than others. A great love left my life. I lost my Grandmother. Now the time of the Morning Glory Cottage has come to an end. Everything ends.

We get to the end of the skein & have to decide what to do next. Sometimes we can start a new ball of yarn. Sometimes we have to bind off.