Today is the day of the calculated due date of my first grandchild. It’s exciting!
We are waiting for this little being since we were told, that we are becoming grandparents for the first time. I was so happy and cried tears of joy...
I started to knit a baby blanket in the last week. While knitting my thoughts moved around and I remember stories of knitting, weaving and sewing women sitting by the fireside, in living rooms or kitchens. There are so many female traditions of meeting and doing crafts work together for special occasions like weddings or birth, Christmas or Easter.
These were cheerful and busy assemblies with laughter and singing, talking and dreaming, sometimes squabbling or talking about serious problems.
Taking part is giving strength and shelter, inspiring and exciting. Especially when these women are your best friends. From time to time they help you to come in contact with your shadows and face unpleasant truth you don’t want to see. And sometimes it’s an amount of work you do together to prepare a celebration.
I knitted on my own, without the company of wise women. Silent, meditative and contemplating. Thinking about these times of isolation because of the corona virus , which didn’t bother me in the beginning. Now I miss my friends.
Sitting there and knitting I started to weave my good wishes for my grandchild and my daughter in law into the meshes of the babyblanket. Thinking of them. Imagine how the blanket gets in physical contact with them. I felt the warmth it spended my thighs. Imagined it warming the baby or the mother’s legs.
Will they like the blanket? Will it be usabel? Is it to heavy, to thick, to cold, to warm?
Each mesh, each row brought my thoughts and feelings nearer to them. I wished, they will feel comfortable and cozy with the finished blank. There were pictures of a baby holded and loved by it’s parents. I felt warm and soft baby skin, heard the sounds babies make when they are happy and satisfied, smelt the flavour babies have. I remembered breastfeeding my children. This intense moments of loving and caring. I thought about the first smile of my unborn grandchild. Of the first time my children smiled, the first time they laughed. How will the laughter of this little being will sound? Opening my heart I felt more and more connected. The baby became real to me.
How will it look like? Which character will it have? Which talents? Will there be a connection between us? Will it have a good life? Is it healthy and happy? Will I see it growing up? So many questions. Uncertainty. As always in real life. I can accompany as a grandmother. And I’m so glad and happy that I may have this opportunity...
There were words of love, of welcoming and tender joy flowing out of my heart...
I hope they reached mother and child in that moment.
The blanket is finished. It’s in the fresh baby’s room, waiting to be useful... to spend warmth and coziness... equipped with good wishes...