She Was Also A Knitter

Gone too soon... Today I got onto Facebook only to find out that someone I knew years ago from high school died from cancer. Following the link to her obituary, I thought, "I hope it's not who I think it is." We were not really friends, but then, she was friendly to everyone. Full of spunk and sass and the owner of a crazy orange VW Beetle, I can think back to her making everyone laugh in marching band. It's funny how someone older in high school can leave such a lasting impression. I think we might've been friends if I'd been older. Or, at least, in hindsight I think we would've been friends.

Her obituary revealed that she was an avid knitter. A knitter! Immediately, I went to Ravelry and looked her up, recognizing a pic from her Facebook photos as her Ravatar. Turns out, she was the moderator of a very large Stitch 'n Bitch in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. She also had an Etsy shop where you could find stitch markers and earrings. From looking at her projects on Ravelry, she seemed to dabble in a little bit of everything and took on some challenging projects.

The hardest part of today for me was reading her blog posts. They revealed the terror and sadness she felt. She had two little boys and was hoping to have a third child at 40. Instead, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent chemo and radiation. It was sobering and maddening to read the thoughts of someone so full of life experiencing it being taken away. The blog posts ended in 2012, and her steady flow of knitting projects on Ravelry petered out.

Coincidentally, Kelli and I went to Knitters Connection the same year and were in the same room for the super exciting first meeting with the creators of Ravelry, Jess and Casey. If I'd only known she was there, maybe we could've gotten to share our common love of knitting and been knitting buddies.

It makes me angry and sad that someone so full of life, humor, and kindness with a keen eye for noticing quiet beauty in the little things (posthumously discovered by reading through her posts) is gone from this world. Not fair. Cancer sucks. This news makes my day quiet and reflective. Sad.