Knitting and Healing, Healing and Knitting

I've been away from my post for a long time. My daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, Moose, have been spending some time with me so we can all grieve the loss of Eliana together. There have been many tears but also some chances to smile. Thank God for my friends who have rallied together to pray and comfort us. Among those friends are some wonderful knitting ladies who cooked meals for us for nine days. I would like to publicly thank Dorah Bluth for organizing the whole plan and for the first night of meals, Beth Mashmann, Karin Maag-Tanchak, Sheila Pacowski, Linda Ingraham, Joyce Thomas, Barbara Kavanagh, Cathy O'Neill, and Elise Hiller for all the other nights of dinners. We had a great selection and in large enough quantities that I didn't have to make lunches most days either. God bless all of you and my family feels blessed to count you among our friends.

There has been an enormous outpouring of love and support, too many people to name individually here but you know who you are and I can't find words adequate enough to express my gratitude.

Some of the process of healing has been knitting. Every stitch I knit has a prayer attached to it and so the Chicks have helped also by getting me back into my routine. It felt good to see those loving friendly faces again and to have my daughter Amanda here to join in was comforting too.

Elaine and Sheila
Liz and Amanda
Daughter and Mother healing together.
Last week Moose needed some fun time so Poppop and I took the family to the Adirondack Animal Park near Amsterdam, NY. The wagon ride through the open portion of the park was exciting as the camels tried to catch up and give us a kiss.
The big old Bactrian camel almost hitched a ride.
Moose was so excited to see an ostrich this close, but NO CLOSER!

The giraffe was hungry and willingly took my crackers. Moose was going to try to feed him too but...

when he got close enough he decided the giraffe was a lot bigger than he was prepared for.

It was much easier to feed the bear since all Moose had to do was drop the "Fruit Loops" into the shoot. We forgot to tell him they were "animal" Fruit Loops, not people cereal, so, you guessed it! He tried to eat one. Not too tasty a treat!

The reindeer wanted to eat his crackers right from the source, but Moose knew the routine, drop it down the shoot.

The monkey, however, was easy to feed. Moose got a kick out of touching fingers with a real live "Curious George"!

There were animals to climb....

and animals to pet. All in all, a great time to relax and just be a kid.

Amanda has some online mommy friends who met when they had their three year old children and these wonderful women rallied around her. Since we are located near New England, the ladies from there suggested meeting at a halfway point to let the kids get together and give Amanda and Phil a little love and comfort in person. We all met last Saturday at the Amelia Park Children's Museum in Westfield, Massachusetts.

Left to right, Kim, Amanda, Sarah, Kirsten, and Aline

We managed to herd the kids together long enough to get a quick photo of all of them and then they were off!

Moose played dentist in the dental office.

Then he ran to the grocery store to check out customers.

Time out for a picnic in the fields and a little running time.

After lunch it was back inside to shoot Nerf balls from the air cannons. Moose's favorite expression was "LOOK OUT BELOW!"

"Captain Kirk" at the controls.

Even the adults loved the rocket ship.

It was a wonderful day to be a kid and apparently very hard work too.

Now it's back to reality and finding the energy to go on after a tragedy. Eliana will be in our hearts forever and luckily we have Moose to bring a smile into our lives and keep us moving forward.