Bittersweet Goodbye

I went to knitting tonight. It was and average evening, aside from the fact that it is my last time with the ladies until who knows when, but I am SO glad I went. Though it is sad to actually say goodbye, and mean it, there is some gravity that weighs in to take the measure of what lies ahead. We are really moving. We are going to be gone REALLY soon, and it only truly hit tonight, since it is something I have tried to do every week for the past four years.

I have learned a great deal about myself and others in this time of knitting for my sanity. When Jay first fell ill, it was soon afterward that I found the knitting group, first at the shop, then at a friends' house. I am floored by the love of the group of ladies I have been privleged to get to know. They are, by far, some of the funniest, deep, and smart women I have ever known in my life, thus far. There is a certain beauty about coming together for a shared hobby or, as it were, any craft, though knitting was central.

I went to take mind off of things. Sometimes I did not know who I would meet that understood what we were going through. A word of wisdom, sympathy, or assurance would be offered as needed. A laugh would often erupt for ay old reason, and I haven't had inside jokes since I was a kid, until I met these girls. Not because anyone was trying to exclude anyone else, but because we would talk of such things that no one else would truly get, unless they were there.

I thought I would cry if they did anything for me, which they did by way of card, food, and gifts, but it was walking out after actually saying goodbye, when I shed my tears of departure. I will miss them something awful, in ways I didn't imagine. They all truly care, have been there for years and know all of our struggles, and have offered me respite and reprieve from in many days of monotonous health issues we were wading through. They know me, because to know me these days, is to know what I have been through and somehow shared in the arduous journey. For as many weeks in a row that I could manage and had, sometimes meeting on the side, outside the main group, if I hadn't any other time, they were there.

Thank God for these ladies, may they have many blessings.