Moms (or Plants and Baby Blankets)

This is what began my latest project…

From: Monika
To: Catharine Cox
Subject: Plant
Date: May 11, 2012

Hi Cathy,

The plant is coming back to life :-)

Monika

Here is the back story. In fall 2007, shortly after I came back to work after my Mom passed away, some coworkers at our sister company sent me a large plant. It sat in front of me in my cubicle, and every time I looked at it it made me think of my Mom. I took good care of it for a couple of years, but then I overwatered it and made it unhappy and it did poorly for about a year. As I traveled it was watered sometimes, and sometimes was not. But it hung on.

When I left the office and relocated to Illinois, I left the plant behind in the office that I vacated. The plant just never bounced back and honestly, it looked like the poor thing had lived out its days and had gone to the great garden in the sky. I felt guilty and it gave a little twinge to my heart.

Little did I know, a coworker of mine took this plant into her cubicle and gave it lots of love. She repotted it and loved it. Monika is a quiet, beautiful person. Gorgeous, actually. But she took the dried up stalk that was once a great plant and unbeknownst to me… she brought it back to life. She didn't know the back story behind the plant. Two days before Mother's day, she sent me the above email with the above photo and when I opened it I cried. A lot. To me it was a message from my Mom and it made Mother's Day easier for me because I felt that she reached out to me through Monika. I told her this and we had a lovely conversation about it and a little while later she sent me this…

On 6/26/12 2:07 PM, "Monika"  wrote:

It's growing

Sorry the pic quality is not the greatest...

How can that not make you smile?  Monika was just about to have her 1st baby. A little girl. I wanted to do something special for her. 

This is the first baby blanket I've made since I made one for Caden. The blanket I made for Caden was before I really knew how to knit. Monika's blanket was a true labor of love. The pattern said it would take 30 hours. Yeah… took me a LOT longer than that because I kept dropping a stitch here and there or ending up with an extra one. And I can't give a gift to someone if I know there is one stitch wrong it in. I spent as much time tinking (knitting backwards to correct) asI did knitting it forwards. But I did it! ;-)  

When I knit I like to have the person in mind that I am making it for. Baby Aleksandra, this blanket is coming your way next week. I hope it keeps you warm. <3