A Sweater for Rachel

Yesterday was the third anniversary of my niece, Rachel Grace's, death. She was born many weeks early and lived for about 48 hours. Just doing my thing -knitting, writing, trying to make meaning from the circumstances- I seem to have come up with the draft of a book. This is a DRAFT of the introduction, but in honor of Rachel it seemed appropriate to post it today.





Let’s stipulate from the outset that the birth of any baby can be a gift to the world. It does not matter to me if the child has physical and/or cognitive challenges. It doesn’t matter if the child will only live a few days. The child is perfect. Nonetheless, the circumstances around his or her birth can be staggeringly imperfect. Of course, we want easy lives rather than hard ones for the babies in our lives, and so we prepare. We give up coffee (!). We take more naps. We listen to Mozart. In that same spirit, we acknowledge that full-term pregnancies are better for babies than shorter-term ones. In the case of a premature infant, something is very wrong, even if just for a short time.

It may seem silly to knit for such a non-standard situation. How many babies can this affect, after all? The answer is “a lot,” but that is not the point. We knit for many reasons. We soothe ourselves with knitting. We knit to show love when words fail us. We knit when we don’t know what else to do. There’s a vague sense of disquiet, that “something’s wrong” feeling, when a knitter finds herself without her knitting. We knit because it’s our art, quibbling about the distinction between art and craft aside. In short, we knit because doing so is part of who we are.

Moreover, it must be said that knitters flourish in bad times; it’s where we are at our best. Whatever the problem, we try to cushion its impact with soft, warm yarn, knitted up with all the love we can muster. I know for a certain, lived truth that the stories of premature babies do not always end happily. Rachel Grace, my niece, lived among us for about 48 hours. She was our perfect Rachel, just as the world and our family needed her to be; nothing about her life was a mistake or a failure. And yet, she died. Knitting has a role here, too. I knew that she would probably be born premature, and I knit anyway. She never wore the things I made for her, and that matters not at all. Knitting those things was no sillier, for sure, than the fact that I was knitting receiving blankets for a baby born at the end of June in Alabama. That was probably way stupider, actually.

I will argue that knitting for premature babies is no more futile than any other knitting. If you only judge its immediate utility, knitting is always futile. Babies outgrow garments as quickly as we can knit them, sometimes after only one wearing. I have been known to misjudge entirely, and a knitted garment NEVER fit its intended recipient. Knitted garments cost more to make than their mass-produced counterparts. Certainly, my time could be more productively spent in other ways. (Dusting comes immediately to mind.) And yet, I will argue to my last gasp that knitting still has merit.

Knitted baby garments warm and protect. They organize rituals, as we see with, say, knitted baptismal gowns. Knitted toys are fun and harmless when thrown. Knitted blankets welcome babies into families, as in “Auntie Andrea always makes the receiving blankets. Here’s yours.” And they even mark life transitions. Auntie Andrea also makes (has great intentions of making, anyway) the afghan that accompanies a college freshman off to his new adult life. Premature babies need many of these same life markers; we just have to provide them faster.

Sometimes, though, even knitting is not enough. In the case of the howling grief that accompanies the death of a child, it was not. My next line of defense is to write. It’s what I do. It’s who I am. And when even that fails, I teach. Healing from Rachel’s death required all three. This book is the result.

I have designed patterns specifically for preemies and micro-preemies. You will find the standard baby wardrobe of hats, booties, and blankets made tiny. But more than that, you will find garments that accommodate the machinery and wizardry that attempt to mimic the simple elegance of a mother’s body. You will also find patterns that allow for the interesting social bonding that occurs between a tiny preemie and his or her parents. And finally, we have to acknowledge that on some level reducing the number of pre-term babies requires not better technology but better care of their mothers. In that spirit, I have included a pattern for mom. It’s not exactly a public health intervention, but it’s a symbol that at least part of our focus needs to be on her.

Alongside each pattern, you will find an essay based on my reflections as I designed and knit each item. I claim no great wisdom. I don’t even claim small wisdom, come to that. But I have walked this road, and if my experience helps anyone then so much the better. And finally, on the off chance that the sale of the book results in any actual money, it will be donated entirely to the March of Dimes in Rachel’s name, to help ease the lives of all babies.

First Sentences

I borrowed this idea from Lisa, who got it from someone else I think. The idea is to find the first sentence from the first post of each month for last year. It's a way of determining what you were really talking about and maybe to determine what the theme of the year became. Mine, as you know, didn't end like it began, to say the least.


January: "I watched An Inconvenient Truth last night." OK, we started the year out being cause-y.
February: "Hanging out with a group of Indian women, I met their children." This is from my India trip, and could be construed as social justice related. That was the goal, anyway.
March: "We have now established the upper bound for the endurable amount of time spent away from marital...ummm.... comforts." Ummm.... not so much with the social justice. This post was about sex, and the strain on the marriage of living apart. If I had only known that I was the only one not getting any sex!
April: "A few months ago, I blogged about Bishop Bruskewitz, Call to Action's excommunication in his diocese, and the Vatican's upholding of the excommunication." My fairly regular Catholicism rant... I like to imagine that these posts are related to social justice issues.
May: "I tell knitting students that all we knitters do is take perfectly good string and tangle it up." OK, a knitting post. It's part of who I am. At least I wasn't whining about sex or my marriage falling apart!
June: "Set your iPod to shuffle and tell us the first ten songs that appear." The last of the Friday Random 10, as it happens.
July: "Rachel has a March of Dimes memory bracelet here: Rachel Grace." Poor sweet tiny Rachel... we miss her.
August: "Our neighbor, fellow parishioner, and colleague Dave Changnon (a specialist on climate change, as it happens) took these pictures of our flooded hometown." This was the only post in August, and it wasn't until the 25th. Now there's a clue -in retrospect- that something was dreadfully wrong.
September: "The first year students are here and wandering around in wide-eyed wonder." A post about kids growing up and taking one's own children off to college. I kind of liked that post, actually, but it wasn't really related to social justice.
October: "My marriage was falling apart around my head, and I couldn't think about anything else." Uh oh... here we go.
November: "On the last horrible day of living with my husband, I was e-mailing my siblings about every half hour." Still whining... but I was still homeless, too. Some whining was certainly justified. I was certainly still terrified, if that's any kind of justification.
December: "I feel almost competent this morning." At least for one day, things were looking up for me. Yet, it must be conceded that it has been a long time without a social justice post.

So, here's the tally:

Social Justice (very broadly construed) posts: 3
Marital Whining: 1
Family posts:2
Knitting posts: 1
"Oh my God, the sky is falling" posts": 3
Knitting... the weather...miscellany: 2

I need to get back on topic to be fully who I am. On the other hand, I think we started to build some real community when my life fell apart, and I so desperately needed you guys. Maybe theoerical social justice stuff, while important, needs a human face.

Anyone else want to volunteer for this year? I'm plum worn out!

Ten Minutes at a Time

Can a book be written ten minutes at a time?

This might be the Shakespeare/Shakespeare's Sister dilemma. A real writer, a true writer, a person who's already written something famous-ish, can sit in his or her library all day. There's an eloquently documented terror in that kind of life (try Bird by Bird by Annie Lamott), and I don't mean to minimize the stresses of it.

But I don't live that life. I live this one, where I have something like zero-sum time management. Yet here I am, dressed and ready for work and I don't have to leave for 10 minutes. The laundry is started. Sean Connery, the red Roomba, is vacuuming upstairs. My bed is made. My gym bag is packed; my stuff is gathered for the day. I'm going to stop for gas and the world's fastest oil change (they PROMISED!) on the way to work. Good enough.

Today I'm apparently using that available ten minutes for blogging -a good thing in my world. But some days, surely, I could use it for other kinds of writing.

Here's the project: Just over a year ago, my brother and his wife lost a premature baby. Well, they didn't lose her; they know where she is. She died, because she was born wildly prematurely and with no lungs to speak of. Rachel Grace still lives with us, in a real way, even though I never saw her and she only lived about 24 hours. She was the baby we were meant to have at that time; I absolutely believe that. She changed us.

And there's this other truth that I'm a knitter, and a knitting teacher, and a thinker about knitting and women's communities.... Slowly, slowly, the idea is coming together: a book of knitting patterns for premature babies dedicated to Rachel. I have two knitting patterns in my head that would work for premature babies, I think. One is a sweater that instead of buttoning down the front has a front panel that buttons down the left side and the right side (side-front, essentially at the clavicle...does that make sense?). That would allow the baby to wear cute sweaters made by doting aunties AND be attached to life-saving machines (that have cords and leads and things). If I'm a clever girl indeed, I could figure out how to turn this pattern into a sacque or even a jumpsuit sort of thing. (A slight pause here while I wish I still had access to geometrically-trained in-house help.) The other one is just a pretty blanket, with a satin binding. We don't use multiple fabrics much in knitting, and I don't know why. The thing babies LIKE about blankets is the satin binding, in my experience.

There will be more patterns if my brain remains active and appropriately caffeinated. Each pattern could be (will be) associated with an essay. I need these essays to be, well, fabulous. So far what they are is platitude-filled drivel. This is not an auspicious beginning. But again, I refer to Anne Lamott -shitty first drafts, is her advice. That we have ;)

But the question on the table is, can a person write in 10 minute slots of time? It will annoy me, no question about it. It's like snacking, rather than dining. On the other hand, it might provide some needed urgency. "Get some words on the page; the timer is about to go off."

So, what happens if I stop wondering if I can be (if I'm allowed to be) a writer and just step into that role? A real writer -a true writer- couldn't let 10 free minutes pass by without writing -any more than a dancer could avoid dancing when she hears a scrap of music or a singer could avoid singing in the shower or the car. Writing. That's why the universe provided those 10 minutes in the morning. I should honor that gift and claim them. Eventually I'll have a book, and eventually is better than never!

My Heart is Breaking

I say that a lot. It's the curse of the empath. But really, this time I mean it.

Rachel Grace Buford, my niece, was born on Wednesday and died this morning (or possibly, technically, it was still Thursday. The details aren't really important.) There were simply too many medical hurdles for her to overcome. With all the strength in her tiny little fighter's body, she just couldn't do it.

Her parents (my brother and his wife) did the mind-bendingly loving thing and signed her off the machines that were sustaining her, and held her until she died. I hope that she knew, in whatever time she had with us, that we are her family and that she was perfectly loved. I hope she knew she was our perfect Rachel, and that we were honored by her presence.

Godspeed, little one.

Memory Bracelet

Rachel has a March of Dimes memory bracelet here: Rachel Grace. If you want to make a donation that will benefit other babies born too soon, please do so.