comfort

Yesterday at the shore in warm sunshine my brother and I scattered my Mom's ashes in one of her favourite places. Her ashes swirled in the breeze with a pair of white Trumpeter swans and a few geese silently observing. It was strangely uplifting.

From my last post very few days were left for us. But there is comfort in the knowing that her death was mercifully quick, and that she was able to die at home with family and friends near, finally free of pain. More days would only have meant more suffering and more indignities.

And there is a great deal of comfort in the things that she left for us. Things like the knitted doll that she finished in November. Mom purchased the pattern at a LYS in the summer - we were both soaking wet after being caught in a sudden downpour, and the store owner gave us papertowels to blot ourselves. The yarn was bought to support a woman's collective in South Africa - a country she and I visited in 1995 in Nelson Mandela's first year as President. And the hair? Well, Mom didn't like making iCord so the doll remained bald until I gave in and made them for her. In fact, I made dozens of little iCords from scraps of novelty yarn and wrapped them as a birthday present for her. We spent her birthday in Fredericton visiting my brother, and shared a laugh as she opened the little box to reveal what looked like dozens of hairy spiders. Mom finished the doll shortly after returning home and emailed me a picture the next morning. And then gifted the doll to me when I visited that weekend. There's a happy memory of my Mom in every stitch of this knitted treasure.