Knitting Notions: Prayer Shawls & Surviving Cancer

An important milestone will roll around for me next month. I will be celebrating one year as a cancer survivor on December 13th. Hard to believe that much time has past already since I received that fateful phone call from the doctor. On the other hand, it seems as if it’s been much longer. Two days after my surgery (last December), I went to the craft store and bought yarn to begin knitting my first prayer shawl. It seemed right that, while I had to remain inactive, I should work on something meaningful. I didn’t know if the shawl would be for me (since it was my first) or for someone else. Previous to this, most of my knitting in the two years since I took up the craft again, had been scarves. I like knitting something that is completed rather quickly. I have made and given away many to friends and family members, and I love the pleasure they express when I surprise them. (Below are eight of the eleven I made for the gals in my brainstorming group.) But after my surgery I wanted to make something “more substantial.” A prayer shawl seemed appropriate. Not long after I got my own diagnosis, I heard from a dear friend. She too had been diagnosed with cancer recently. Only hers was more advanced than mine and of a more deadly kind. As soon as we got off the phone, I knew I wanted to make this prayer shawl for her. I also began planning a trip to the Pacific coast in the summer so I could take it to her. Every time I picked up the shawl to work on it, I thought of my friend and prayed for her and looked forward to seeing her again. The next time we spoke by phone, she had been released from a recovery center and appeared to be doing well. And then she passed away suddenly (or at least it seemed sudden to me). My friend’s death hit me hard, and for many months afterward, I didn’t have the heart to work on the shawl, because every time I looked at it, I felt the pain of knowing she was gone and we wouldn’t get to speak by phone or see each other again. But last night, after a frenzy of moving around living room furniture (perhaps the desire for change in arrangement inside was due to the sudden change in our weather outside; snow?), I brought out my knitting and got back to work on the prayer shawl. I’ve got about another 10 to 14 hours of work yet to go on it (I’m not a very good judge of how long it will take me but that’s my guess). I’m definitely getting close to finishing it. I still don’t know who will be the recipient of this first prayer shawl. Maybe it is supposed to be mine, a reminder of the journey God has brought me through this past year. For those of you who knit or crochet shawls and lap blankets for those who are ill (a reader of my books sent one to my mother when she broke her hip, and every time I look at it, I’m blessed by her thoughtfulness to an elderly woman she’d never met), God bless you. I hope to follow your example many times in the years to come, always praying for the person who will receive it. ~robin