Because Margaret Said So

Who knows what makes us connect one person to another. And some more firmly than others. It starts, in this case, with a shared connection thorugh a friend and knitting.  I have always lived more in my head than with my hands so I come awkwardly and tentatively to schooling my hands, which perhaps makes me appreciate more not only others' skills but also their willingness to share them with me.

Margaret tumbled into my life like that. If she hadn't been the sister of a friend and a knitter, we might never have known each other, but she meant a great deal to me even though we were so different and so tentatively connected. And so when news came today that she had died in her sleep I felt her loss for my own sake as well as for my friend's. Her eyesight had begun to fail her and she had set knitting aside. I don't think she found anything else to fill that gap.

Only yesterday as my fingers fumbled over a new stitch, I heard her words in my head--I cannot recereate the Yorkshire in her voice-- but the gist was that I had to be tough with my knitting and tug on the stitch to get it to line up as it should. And so I did as Margaret had taught me and was surprised yet again to see that the stitches did, in fact, behave. Margaret said so. That was enough for them.