The stages of grief are not linear: they are a snarly ball of yarn that is so tangled you want to hurl it into the slush outside except you’ve already started knitting your sweater and in spite of dropped stitches and a loping, loose weave, you kind of love the bruised-blue-of-sunset scarf you’ve already begun, achingly warm and scratchy with memories of the one you adore.

So you sit with that ball of wool and you hold space. Sometimes you’re furiously futzing with it, doing anything you can to smush the ball through the teeniest of loopholes; other times your gazing at it with a vengeance usually saved exclusively for leaders bent on planetary destruction; other times you’re gently picking and prodding, knowing there must be a way, and through your tears you make a little progress, a little give, and you can knit another row or three before another knot presents itself; and sometimes you’re charged with unfurling the whole damn ball, and wrapping it all up again.

Oh, and then there are the times of grace when you knit with no impediments other than your aching hands, the lamp lit above you, your family breathing beside you, the rain drizzling around you, the warmth of the furnace and your cozy socks sustaining you.

Charlotte took up knitting last year when she moved to Canada while we were still in Beijing. Her cousins taught her. It reduced her stress greatly, brought her calm. Now she has encouraged Don and me to begin our own projects so we can all knit together and meditate and laugh and cry and de-stress and watch Bob’s Burgers and help each other through our individual and collective grief.

Our new start today will be to get ourselves some wool and begin our own scarves, each stitch a meditation on our dearest of Emilies. 

18 thoughts on “Grief is a Messed Up Ball of Yarn”

  2. Anonymous

    Stitch by stitch, may the rhythm of your needles become a calming heartbeat. The holes and knots and missed stitches will all become part of the achingly beautiful tapestry that is your life.

    Reply
  4. Anonymous

    Thank you for sharing your inner thoughts. My learning from your beautiful and amazing reflection is the realisation that a metaphor is a concept wrapped in a story. Thinking of you all as you find yourselves on this challenging journey. Mads xxx

    Reply
  6. Anonymous

    And the knitting, knotting, falling back, moving forward takes as long as it takes. No one gets to tell you when or if it’s “enough”, when to fall back, when to skip forward. Your heart decides.

    Reply
  8. Anonymous

    I love the thought of the 3 of you knitting together so much. And while I detested knitting the one time I tried it, I do love Bob's Burgers and I can totally see how it's become the show you need to watch. Comedy and grief are so closely intertwined.
    Beautifully written, thank you for sharing your heart ❤️.

    Reply
  16. Anonymous

    You are such a talented writer Leah. I don't knit but I can sure understand the sentiment you are expressing. Love the analogy.

    Reply
  18. Anonymous

    I thoroughly enjoyed your comparison of the process of grief to a dreadfully knarled ball of wool. That made sense to me. And you know what, I HATE KNITTING! I find it SOOOO stressful! Not my cup of tea at all. I used to crochet, and I did enjoy that. I also embroidered. NO cross-stitch though. I haven't done any of those things in years. I read. I watch GREAT series, like Sex Education and British Drama on PBS, or the Dramas on Knowledge Network. And when I want something mindless, I go through the latest added to Disney +, Amazon Prime, Apple +, and Netflix. I prefer to watch the whole series, rather than individual episodes weekly, except for Amazing Race Canada and Amazing Race. I like to keep up with what's the latest in those; especially who's been eliminated.
    Do what you need to do to keep yourself sane while working through the grief and loss.

    Reply

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