Dark days. Small flames.

 Tara and I met each other virtually. 

The pages of Bella Grace Magazine introduced us, and instead of a handshake, Tara and I greeted each other in an email. In her first correspondence, Tara explained that she had been searching for a chunky blanket for years and that when she finally saw my Specially Knitted blankets in the Instagram Spotlight, her search was over.  

She ordered a blanket immediately, and when I asked her to choose the color yarn she wanted, Tara wrote these incredible words: 

“I was going to leave that to your intuition.” 

Tara’s trust in the creative process both freed and intrigued me – and our epistolary relationship began. We wrote to each other several times a week. I sent her updates on my knitting progress, prayed for her loved ones,  her horses, and her sister – who is battling cancer. When I shipped Tara’s blanket, I knew we had both experienced something strangely-sweet. A quondam – I thought- until Tara emailed me a month later.  

She was ordering another blanket, but this time, she was not ordering it alone. Tara and her friend Catherine were commissioning me to knit a gray blanket for their friend, Jacquie, who was caring for her two young children and her dying father, JC. 

Just as I had done before, I knitted and prayed. Tara sent me updates: 

“Jacquie is exhausted and having a hard day.”  

I emailed a few words and those of Khalil Gibran that I was meditating on: “For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”  JC passed away two days later – at 6:30 – on regular Tuesday afternoon. 

I had virtually walked through a difficult time with people I had never met, but will eternally be connected. I exhaled for JC, who was suffering and grieved for Jacquie. I felt a deep sense of gratitude for Tara, who had been wanting to help in some small significant ways. She cried, ate a piece of cheese, folded laundry, organized food, and walked Jacquie’s dog, Tilly.  

Dark days awaits us all, but it’s the small flames that light up the room. It is the small gestures from friends that illuminate and remind us that we are loved and that no matter how dark, we don’t walk through the darkness alone. 

Be a flame

Kadine Christie