Never Say Never Again

Three years ago I made three eyelash scarves for Miss B's school auction. I wasn't enamored of the yarn, nor of that much garter stitch, but they were quick to make and sold reasonably well, so two years ago I did it again. Last year I swore off eyelash, vowing nevermore to touch the stuff, and made a shawl instead.

You know, of course, what happens when I say never again: fate, or in this case Kate, conspires to make a fool of me by coming up with an irresistible counterargument.

While I do a fair amount of charity knitting, ordinarily at any given time I can say no, that is a good cause, but I'm overcommitted already, go hit up someone else. Not in this case. It seems there's a cancer unit at Children's Hospital in Boston, where the kids have decided that they want not just chemo caps, but shaggy funky chemo caps made out of Fun Fur. Children's just happens to be where my son, the Tasmanian Boy, has spent way too much time. Taz was diagnosed with a very nasty brain tumor when he was four years old and given first no chance, and then only a long chance, of five-year survival. He spent nearly a month at Children's, followed by several months at a Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.

Have you ever been on the verge of a nervous breakdown and bored out of your gourd at the same time? I don't recommend it. To keep myself sane, I started to take an interest in the kids on his unit, and I started to knit for them. I had had flirtations with knitting before, but now it became my constant companion. I discovered lace, I learned about paired decreases, I found out that there were ways to cast on undreamt of in my philosophy. I knit during Taz's radiation treatments and physical therapy sessions. I made a baby blanket here, a hat or a pair of mittens there.

By the time Taz came home from Spaulding, bald as a billiard ball and still fighting the odds, I knew better than to leave the house without my knitting bag. We once spent 7 hours in the ER at Children's (if you go to the ER of a major teaching hospital when you're not actually deathly ill, expect a long wait: you're behind everyone who is); we left without a diagnosis but with a hat.


Taz has been cancer-free for eight years now. He suffered serious brain damage, but he's the world's happiest kid. Having seen what kids with cancer and their families go through, I'd do a lot to make more of them just a little happier.

Even if it involves Fun Fur.