UNRAVELLED

She had always knitted, first for her younger siblings, and all of her siblings were younger, then for herself and her husband, then down the line through children to grandchildren.

The youngest daughter asked her for a black jumper, quite plain, round of neck and shortish of sleeve, gave her the wool and the pattern and left her to it. It was not a success, the sleeves not properly set, the neckline uneven, but her daughter cherished it because it was the last ‘real’ thing that she had had knitted for her.

The youngest daughter brought her some colourful wool, thinking it might be a soothing and familiar occupation in this new environment of aged care. A scarf was  suggested. Her hands retained the muscle memory of mechanical knitting but somehow had forgotten when to finish a row, how to collect a dropped stitch. Small things like that. The daughter found her one day, a mass, a mess of knotted wool in her hands, trying to knot another short length to the dozens of short lengths desperately trying to cling together.

It began to distress her that no matter how much she knitted, the scarf, no longer resembling a scarf, was never finished. Sometimes it got shorter, or thinner, or ceased to be as the whole thing was unravelled and begun again. The hands still remembered how to cast on, that was something, then that was all things.

There came a day when the knitting was not in evidence. The daughter gently questioned her about it and she shook her head vehemently and no more was said. Some time later, when she was moved into a more ‘secure’ wing of the home, the daughter found the knitting, or the large ball of knots it had become, in a drawer behind her underwear, as if hidden in shame. The daughter felt distressed at the sight and tried to comfort herself that her mother did not remember it, was no longer ashamed of it. The unravelling was complete.