Many times during our lives we are told to act now because tomorrow might be too late. It's a lesson we relearn over and over because it's so easy for the day to day tasks we have to complete to interfere with the things we feel are really important.
Last May (I think it was), I started working on pair of socks for my grandfather. Over the years he'd made me so many gifts with his own hands, and I realized I'd never made him anything of significance. So I decided to knit him a pair of socks. Now socks can be tricky, but I was doing alright until I got to the part where you turn the heel. I couldn't get it to come out right. I kept coming up one row short from where the instructions said I should be.
I casually contacted several of my knitting friends who are much better at knitting than I am, but it never occurred to me that I had a deadline for this project. I had a vague notion of having them completed in time to send to him for Christmas. Most of my friends were busy, as was I. I attended a wedding overseas in the summer, then in the early fall I celebrated my own 20th wedding anniversary with a vow renewal. Then of course the holidays loomed. So I never really got someone who could help me with the heel turn and gusset instructions I wasn't understanding very well.
Unfortunately, my grandfather died in mid December. So I'm never going to be able to actually give him the gift I had been working on for him. He knew I was making them because I'd asked him about colors he'd be willing to wear. I still haven't finished them, (though this weekend I should be able to, I'm attending a knitting retreat and we're having socks workshops throughout). When I do finish them, I'll wear them myself, and think about my grandfather. I'll remember all the lovely gifts he made for me. It'll always be on the bittersweet side, though. Because these socks should have been keeping his feet warm, not mine.
Grampa had simply always been. He was strong, healthy, hearty. He lived in his home on his own after Gramma died. He drove himself to church and the senior center for meals every day. He was 93 when he fell in the bathroom and broke his hip. It took him an hour to drag himself to the phone, but he managed it. He was in the hospital for around two weeks, but the broken hip was really where it ended. He was ready to go, and this was how he would have wanted to go. But it still rocked my world. I'd often thought "Grampa is very old, he probably won't live much longer" but I never really thought about it seriously. He just always was. He'd been there my entire life, and it never really made it into my brain that he was, eventually, leaving.
My own parents' fragility had seemed a whole lot more real to me. They declined slowly, and much earlier than Grampa did. But all this seems like excuses to me. I'm not happy that I didn't ever get the socks to him to enjoy for the short time he had left.
So I'll wear them, and remember him, and keep him alive in my heart, but every time I do, it'll sting a little bit, as well.
So... today's lesson is: Finish the socks!
Edited to add: I finally finished the socks on Saturday, March 12, 2011. They are soft, and warm, and I wore them as bed socks Sunday night. They were very comfortable.
