Melponeme came to my house

She entered casually, as though we had been expecting her but we just didn't know it. The wake of her walk, however, swirled up everything around her. I watched her as others reacted, and she remained calm, her head slowly turning to supervise. We made eye contact, and while I stared, just like that, her eyes told me why I was knitting Lady Eleanor.

I thought, mistakenly, that I started Eleanor to master entrelac. I thought wrong. On Saturday night, I found out that I had Eleanor in my possession to work on for hours on end in the hospital, where my father-in-law's organs, breath, life, hang in the balance.

All day yesterday I worked on Eleanor, one little angled square at a time. I got bored of her, but I couldn't put her down to work on a different project. I just felt as though I had to keep prodding along on the tiers, and to put it down would somehow imply that I was giving up on her, even if it was just for a break. Something about the continuity of the squares, nestling into each other, one after the other, slowly, back and forth, tier after tier, skein after skein.

Brenda talked about Melponeme this week; I just didn't realize the lesson was for me. Melponeme is still with me, quietly sitting next to me in waiting rooms, in the car to Portland, everywhere. It feels a little better having her with me, knowing that she will watch over my knitting while we watch over Keith.

Today will be more vigilance, and more Eleanor. But she might be finished today, and in that event I know what Melponeme wants me to work on next: the perfect pair of socks for my father-in-law, to wear for comfort, imbued with Melponeme's strength to carry us all through tragedy.