I have been blessed with a phenomenal family: born into, married into, stepped into... Tho of course we are not without times of rotten fruit (circumstances) here and there, all of its branches (people) are an incredible gift. My words today only reference one of many dozen such wonderful evidences of this fact.
I got this sweater in the mail not long ago from a sweet aunt. Not only is it lovingly handmade and still in great shape after 30 years, and it will still fit my dear second boy-who-mostly-wears-handmedowns, it happens to have been knitted in the hands of his grandmother, who he and his siblings have never met.
It even has a tag inside the top of the sweater--you can just see it in the photo--that says "specially handmade by Martha."
Now I can tell you of times I wish for the impossible: that she could have been here for my wedding, or here to help with my babies, here to laugh with me at their antics, remind me of what I was like at their age, or to counsel me on struggles of parenthood. But for the most part, over the past 15 years, my heart has been nurtured and loved into healing, first of all by God, and second of all by God, in the form of the aforementioned phenomenal family, and many fantastic friends. So I linger in my life, perhaps not exactly in the way I envisioned as a child, able to celebrate motherhood and daughterhood, and a deep, deep Love that winds through them both.
So the lump in my throat born when fingers touch the soft sweet yarn-turned-squirrel (i think) on this gift of mother-love that marches confidently from my past toward the future, is full of joy, gratitude, and wonder.
Oh! Happy 87th Birthday today, to the daddy of the grandma who made the sweater!! He's probably playing tennis somewhere in Florida right now...
