In 1975 when I was 12 years old I had a tonsillectomy and stayed in the hospital for several days. My mother had decided that she would knit herself a sweater while she was sitting at my bedside. I remember waking up and through my bleary eyes seeing her sitting there knitting. I was entranced by the movement of her hands and the needles and the white yarn. For all the days I was in the hospital she was right there waiting on me when I needed something and while I slept she was knitting, and when I was awake watching her knit was a comfort to me.

My mother never finished the sweater. She had four children and was a first grade teacher and it seemed that any spare time she had in the evening was spent making lesson plans and correcting papers. So there was no time for knitting and she never loved it the way I grew to after she taught me how. Knitting and crocheting became a passion for me as a young woman and several times I asked her what had become of the white sweater. She looked for it but could not find it. She told me that if she ever found it I could have it but she never did.

Early in March 2020 I rushed to Connecticut because my mother, now 87, had fallen ill and had to have an emergency surgery. For ten days I sat at her hospital bed helping her when she needed it, giving her something to drink, talking to the doctors and nurses, trying to be her advocate. And of course I was knitting while she slept and sometimes I looked up to see she was awake and watching me. My childhood memory came back to me so strong and I thought how things had reversed themselves, now it was my mother sick and needing care as I knitted at her bedside.

She kept giving me instructions for things that needed to be done at her house and telling me where important things were. At one point she told me where she had hidden some old jewelry in a hassock that I should go get to disperse among her daughters and granddaughters. I think now that she probably realized she was dying. Her strength faded and she slipped away on March 12th.

When my sister and I went to her house to gather papers that we needed and also to get a few mementos from our childhood home, I went to the hassock to get the jewelry she had wanted us to have. Inside the hassock was a Christmas tin containing the jewelry, and when I lifted it out I noticed a shopping bag underneath with the word “GIRLS” written on it in marker. I opened the bag and there it was….the white sweater! One completed back panel, one completed sleeve, and the front panel still on the needles, two skeins of yarn and the pattern book complete with my mother’s notes. I broke down and cried to have found it.

Since my mother died during the COVID-19 pandemic, we could have no funeral or even gather together with family to comfort each other. So I drove home to West Virginia with my grief and the white sweater. It is not anything fancy, just a simple cabled and ribbed turtleneck. She bought the pattern book for 35 cents and the acrylic yarn for $1.29 a skein at a department store called Bradlees that has long since been out of business. My mother was a practical woman and never spent a lot of money on herself so washable acrylic that was inexpensive and readily available is naturally what she chose. And white because it would go with everything.

I am going to finish the sweater. I don’t think it will fit me but it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to decide what to do with it now. I just need to finish it. I will think of her as I knit it and it will help me heal.