We're all up and getting ready to head to Helen Keller Hospital for my sister Jillian to have her baby. It's still hard for me to believe that my baby sister is about to become a mother. I'm so thankful that I can be here for her, so excited for her and her husband Gary, and so happy and eager to see her little boy come into the world. Jillian has been so brave and really kept her sense of humor and practicality through all of this, and I'm so proud of her. It's been a bittersweet journey, I know -- we're all missing Mother so much through this.
When Alex was born, my mother knit him a blanket. Knowing she was sick and that she likely would not live to see my eight-years-younger sister have a child, she began knitting another blanket to put aside for her. I'm not quite sure when she started it, but she eventually became too sick to finish it. I took it home this summer, determined to finish it myself. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out the pattern, but the mother of a co-worker helped me out by reading the pattern, figuring out where Mother had stopped, and did the last few rows of the design repeat that I couldn't figure out. I was so happy to be able to finish the blanket, but it was a difficult experience, holding the needles she held, finishing the work that cancer made her unable to finish, doing the job she wanted so badly to do. She might not be physically here to hold her newest grandson, but he will surely be wrapped in her love by all of us in many ways.