(One for each Taylor kid, done, but I think I’ll redo the fire one in Silkie and the Sumoko that gave it that orange so that all eight come from the same yarn family.)

The reason I threw in the detail yesterday that Kurt’s brother-in-law Les had raised his family in my hometown was that there was a story to be told there. Today I’ll tell it.

Les passed on younger than one might hope for, and Kurt’s wife coped with the loss of her brother by wishing to somehow find out the long-unanswerable details: years earlier, in his moment of great need, who had come to his rescue?  Someone had, hadn’t they? Les thought so, but he was pretty hazy about it all and exactly what had happened to him the day he’d been in a terrible car accident.  Les had testified at the trial of the other driver that, Your Honor, my brain’s not too clear yet from it all and I don’t rightly remember…

It had been years ago.  And now he was gone.   Which court was the trial even held in?  She sent out letters, but there seemed no way to know what she wished for.

My in-laws were here visiting, and when Kurt’s wife found out they were from the DC area, she mentioned her brother’s name. Why, yes, of course we knew Les! Then she mentioned how very much she wished she knew more about what had happened that day.

There had been a stake leadership meeting that day. A stake is a collection of wards.  My father-in-law had been at that meeting.

One man had come in very late, in very intense emotion, needing to tell what he’d just seen and what he’d just done.  On his way to the meeting, someone had run a red light and had hit the car in front of him so hard that the other driver was ejected from his VW Bug and was lying in the street, fading in and out as this man had pulled over and run to him.  He thought he might recognize the man as a fellow Mormon, although they weren’t in the same ward and he wasn’t sure. He asked him if he wanted a blessing, got the faint answer yes, administered to him, attended to him, and waited with him for the ambulance to arrive.

And then he went on to that meeting, hoping terribly hard that Les would be okay.

And so Les had pulled through.  One can only imagine how much it had strengthened him not to be alone there as he lay so badly injured in the street.

Les’s sister had wanted so dearly to know: who had helped him? Who had been his Good Samaritan? There had been someone, hadn’t there?  And what exactly had happened?

There was only one person alive by then who could possibly have answered her questions and to reassure her that someone had indeed been present for her brother in his hour of great need.

And, having flown across the country to visit us, he just happened to be sitting next to her right there at church.

Kurt spoke briefly today.  I remember him when.  It was inevitable, but it’s still somehow surprising week after week to see a man who’d been riding his bike dozens of miles a day on into his late 70’s now needing help to walk a few steps; when I asked him recently how his grandkids were doing, he both laughed and sighed and admitted he couldn’t quite keep them all straight anymore.

He is the oldest member of our ward (congregation), he proudly reminded us today, and, he said, he hopes to have many more years to reminisce over.

I found myself wishing I could tell the newer members of the ward a little of the back-in-the-days.  You know that when that happens, I end up inflicting it on you-all.

Kurt’s wife’s brother raised his family in my hometown, and the young woman growing up that Kurt’s older son would later marry was also from my home ward in Maryland; meeting Kurt and his wife when we moved here was like putting a little piece of our hometown puzzle together.  Understand that there are many little stories of surprise and small-world overlappings embedded in that sentence.

His daughter-in-law’s grandparents were the founders of a large international business that, if I told you the name, you would instantly recognize it.

So here’s the story, going back to when my kids were little.  Kurt had a tradition of having his sons and his grandsons fly into town here every summer to go on a big annual Scout camp-out our ward held,  Kurt coming along too.  Just like old times for him and his now-grown kids; there were new memories to be made with his sons as adults now and with grandkids–sometimes granddaughters too–to get to know better, up high in the Sierras with a pack and a tent or two in the clear bright air. (My John adds that Kurt and his older son would race to see who could be first to swim two miles’ distance in forty-degree water, and that Kurt did 200 push-ups a morning.)

There was a young dad in our ward, father of a little girl about a year old when he got called to be ward scoutmaster.  So Steve was in charge of those events.  Now, I have no idea how much camping experience he had, but he was game.  Steve, tall, blond, and gorgeous, had met his Hawaiian wife while surfing in the Islands.

She missed home and he missed Hawaii too, and eventually they moved back there.  He got a job working for a large corporation for the necessary nine-to-five end of life. He was bright and good at what he did, but his boss tended to write him off as something of a beach bum.

Fast forward a few years. People move, people you don’t often see anyway you lose touch with, it happens.

Kurt’s son, who was by now a corporate bigwig in his in-laws’ company, and his wife, were out strolling along the beach on I think it was the Big Island, talking to the head honcho of the local facility.  I’m sure the man was nervous; or rather, at least, I know I would be, if I didn’t know the two he was talking to but only their Names.

And all the sudden Kurt’s son was running! Running, and throwing his arms around one of the manager’s employees, that beach bum dude, going, “STEVE! *STEVE*!!  How ya DOIN’!!!” Thumping each other on the back, thrilled like little kids, the wife joining in, wanting to catch up on old times, talking about back in the day, how are the kids, forgetting business entirely.

While the manager stood there stunned, wondering, What just happened here?! How do they…? How on earth!?

I’ve been told Steve got a nice promotion after that.

Kurt may not remember all his family’s stories in his old age.  But we younger folks can help him write down memories of some of the good he created in others’ lives and remind him and cheer him in his old age.

Not entirely sure about that first one; I like this Silkie-yarn theme of all of the siblings’ hats being connected,  ie same yarn, two colorways being riffed on.  I do know, though, that at least one of the grandmas likes orange. Hmm.

Class, pay attention, now, please.

Yes, ma’am  (gives next desk over a quiet shove with a foot, sneaking in a, Hi Blog!)  The answer is: a hat!

Thank you, dear.  You–Miss Laceweight in the back. I hear you just fine, now, shhh, you’re just going to have to wait your turn. Raise your hand quietly and wait for me to call on you.

It just wasn’t it. I only got a few rows into it but frogged it.  Not soft enough. Didn’t please me.   Colors wrong.  No.

Well, huh.  I grabbed that Blue Moon Silkie Lagoon and began another one for one of the boys instead: one skein of teal-blue Manos Silk with it this time.

Brian’s family shared so many pictures of their older boys and ours camping in the Sierras near Lake Tahoe with the Scouts, and each one of these hats captures the colors in those photos.

I finished the third one, then, tonight at Purlescence, hanging out with my friends while my yarn had a ball.  Mary retrieved the Silkie for me once, but after that I declared it free range yarn and, as long as it wasn’t going to trip anyone up, let it roll with the punches.

It wandered a little down the aisle to my side. A sweet young merino hung a strand down from its perch, Rapunzel style, and they kind of got wrapped up in each other. Hat’s off to the two–I cast off and unleashed the strands.

I’d brought with me some more Silkie, this time in a colorway Blue Moon calls “Love.” (Or called; I don’t see it on their site at the moment.)  I picked out some superwash to match it tonight for Brian’s sisters, some red, some pink, all very soft.

I was almost to my car when Sandi came running after me.  Wait!  I hadn’t gotten a discount!

They insisted. They knew who it was to be knit for.  They asked me to send Brian’s family their love, too.

I walked back inside; they fiddled with the register and counted out the difference. I looked at it and grinned, “I’ve never been paid for leaving a yarn store before.”

They are such good souls there.  Sandi, Nathania, and Kaye: thank you.

Hey, Dad, look what’s blooming now–thank you!

Twins by a different color… I was already into the green hat today before I realized that oh, right, I was going to use superwash for all these. Misti baby alpaca isn’t, but oh, does it feel wonderful; I decided, well, hey.  One doesn’t always have to be entirely practical.  Meantime, I definitely have enough of the Blue Moon skein left to make a third, although I’m going to do another girl hat while I decide what to put with it.

Thought I’d show the finished fuschia-orange one, ends woven in, so Ellen can let out a sigh of relief. There you go.  Done.

I remembered today what I already knew, that when it comes to knitting ribbing, two by twos knit up so much faster, so much easier on the hands, and in a fair bit less time than one by ones.  Y’know, there’s a parable waiting to leap out of that.

On to the next, after I decide what it’s going to be.  The whether-or-not  report is predicting bright and sunny, with chance of scattered colors.

“I’m trying to get a Taylor family project done a day.”

“Ouch,” winced Michelle. “Break out the icepacks.”

It’s 11:26 pm and I’ll run the ends in tomorrow. I know, slacker…

Yarn: one strand Somoko superwash merino/kid mohair/nylon/silk from Fleece Artist, one strand, Maple Creek Farms superwash merino/bamboo/nylon, sock weights bought at Stitches East Fall ‘08, and I never realized till today how well they would go together if I should need, say, a worsted-weight’s worth of superwash treated wool…

What to do.

Dithering: I hanked 1550 yards of white merino/cashmere/silk blend off a cone and scoured it. Wound 440 yards of suri alpaca into a ball.

I wanted to knit a hat.  A good, useful, guy-type thing, right?  I bought some Zara merino Friday at Purlescence because it was so soft yet tightly spun–but when it came right down to it, I realized later, it was thinner than I had any desire to knit in ribbing.

Yesterday at church, Brian’s oldest sister was thrilled when I gave her the scarf made from Liz’s Belisa cashmere and Robin’s Cashmere Superior; they’d danced beautifully together on the needles. Then the purple cowl for her little sister.  Their older brother stood there, delighted at how happy the one sister was and how much the other one was about to be.

I’d already planned for him to be next. Zara, don’t look at me like that.

And so I got those other useful-later tasks done while not-knitting.

Finally, I pulled a tub of yarn out of the closet, opened it up–and felt, oh, at last.

Now, you can never get ahead of nice people; I once surprised Tina Newton with a shawl, and she surprised me right back with not only more of the same Geisha yarn so I could go make me one too, which I did, but also a whole whack of other stuff too.

But the Silkie (link is to the colorway) in the lot had refused to budge. Its time hadn’t happened yet.  I wanted to thank Tina by putting it to good use, and all it would tell me was, Just you wait.

Today, as I looked at the Zara and that open tub, the Silkie went, Told you so.  So there.

It’s just a plain watchman’s cap in 1×1 rib, but the colors came out in a slight diagonal all over that delights me. Leigh Witchel’s basic 2×2 hat formula I riffed on, here.

Three younger siblings done, five to go.

On a lighter note: Friday, one of my husband’s co-workers saw my husband and stopped in his tracks in the hallway, incredulous, going, WHAT are you DOING?

Another colleague was working from home that day, and going past the guy’s office, Richard had noted the camera on top of the man’s computer there.

So on impulse he’d danced into the room, holding his fingers in the requisite rabbit-ear V’s, jumping up and down dancing and singing the little-kid song, “Little Bunny Foo-Foo, I don’t want to see you…”

The guy at home saw him, though. I imagine it’ll be one of those office stories they laugh over for years.

The teachers and administrators did a marvelous job of teaching about upholding freedom of speech and of the values of America while teaching the children how to cope with being hated without a cause. I read today of another poster being held up by dozens at the high school: “There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope and its endurance. Love will never come to an end.”

As for the protestors, telling–a child!–whom you know nothing about except that she lives in California that you are actively wishing for her violent death–that is absolutely, unless there is serious mental illness involved, the essence of evil.

Perhaps that explains it.

At Stanford, a bagpiper played an emotional “Amazing Grace.” Forgive.

Well done.  Brian Taylor would have forgiven them.  It certainly doesn’t come easy, it requires honest prayer for their souls and my own; I’m working on it.

Speaking of Brian.  His funeral was today. His uncle spoke of their worries and grief as his schizophrenia got rapidly worse–and yet he was everybody’s favorite patient, a sweet soul, so much so that a doctor who’d tried hard to save him flew from LA to be with the family today.

Last Saturday, the uncle’s daughter had woken up from a vivid dream of Brian coming for a visit, seeing her, being absolutely radiant and telling her with joy, “I’m all better now.”

There was so much love in that dream and the experience so intense that she told her father over breakfast and they rejoiced in it, hoping and praying it meant there had been some breakthrough with the medications at last.

And then the phone rang…

They will always have the memory of that sense of joy that came first.  The God of love granted them comfort to last a lifetime in the hours between Brian’s death and when they knew.

“There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope and its endurance. Love will never come to an end.”

Amazing.  It looks to me like they accomplished what the grief counselors tried to. The God who loves has the infinite wisdom to be able to make use of the worst that is in man as well as our best.

I wasn’t going to write about them.  Silence–the act of turning one’s back on them and walking away without a word–was the most they personally deserve.

But our children deserve more.  Our children deserve to know that the adults in their lives stood up for them, and so I add my voice here to the crowd.

There is a group whose name will not sully my blog who fancy themselves Christians.  They support themselves by screaming their hate, trying to provoke people into confrontations, hoping to be able to sue to make money.

As one reporter noted, zero degrees windchill factor in January where the group lives, or California sun, well, now, hey, let’s go on vacation.

So they came here.  They filed a report with the police.  They intended to protest at our high school and then over at Stanford University’s Taube Hillel House: to wave placards and yell at our children at their school that they were all going to hell for being tolerant of Jews and gays, and that the loss of their friends at the railroad tracks was very much what they rightfully deserved by the wrath of God.

The high school immediately announced school would start late today. No child had to go through that.  No child had to face pain deliberately inflicted by those who sought power over them in their most vulnerable and most painful moments.  They encouraged people to have the thugs speak to the wind alone.

Sage advice, that.

And yet.

Silence can also, at its worst, convey assent.  And that absolutely could not be.

Children from other schools came, even from as far away as the other side of the Bay.  Parents came. Teachers came.  Grandparents came.  Children of our own town came.  Signs were hoisted in peaceful counter-protest, with most folks staying on the high school’s side of the street, avoiding any possible charges of physicality with the haters (remember, assault means fear of being hit, battery, actually being hit; they could claim fear simply by someone coming close.)

On our side, placards read “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” “God loves everybody, even hatemongers.” And one sign later at Stanford asked, simply, “Got Love?”

Listen to one of the thugs’ ugly response:

“You’ll be in front of the train next! God laughs at your calamity!”

No, He doesn’t.  And you, ma’am, don’t know what any one of those children at that school believes–but if you notice, they were preaching and exemplifying the best Christian values to you.  Love. Tolerance. Understanding.  Again, “God loves everybody, even hatemongers.”

Who were facing them across the street.

Our students: “After all we’ve been through, it’s wrong for them to be here.”

“It really helped pull us together. There’s a real solidarity at our school.”

Our children saw human faces that were evil. That took satisfaction in their suffering and hoped there would be more.

Thank you dear God, I think our train tracks just got a lot safer.

For the first time in a long time, I got to the South Bay Knitters group tonight; we did the usual talking about our knitting and showing off and chatting…

…Sometimes, when you need a chance to laugh, one that comes with a serious oh-my-goodness wince will do.

Somehow the subject got onto stolen cars.  To my surprise, several people there had tales to tell.

And then one woman told her son’s story and totally took the prize.

Now, anybody who lived in this area during the Loma Prieta quake in ‘89 remembers where they were, and the news stories and places have their own instantly-recognized buzzwords in the local culture.

Her son had gone with a few friends to watch the World Series–the one my dad was watching on TV, when all the sudden the camera did this weird shaky-shake as the announcer exclaimed, “Hey!  I think we’re having an earth!–” and the screen went blank.

Her son and friends were there at Candlestick Park, looking around to see if that was just the crowd somehow being that raucous in the stands? But no.  The place was ordered evacuated; there was no way to know how damaged the stadium might be, and no way no how were the teams going to continue playing baseball that night.

So they went to go pile in the Jeep and go home.

Only, it wasn’t there.

They called the cops and apologized, going, “I know, right now of all times, you have more important things you’re worrying about, but…”

Her kid got a call back some weeks later.  They’d found the car!

“But I don’t think you want it back.”

An intrigued, puzzled, “Where did you find it?”

“On the Cypress Structure.”

In the kitchen, I without thinking sang a snatch of a catchy little tune that my kids had learned in church when they were little that starts with “I love you, and you love me…”

And all the sudden my grown kids behind me were doing the little fishy-wiggle thing with their hands, being goofy, chiming in, “We go together like the fish in the sea,” and then putting their arms up to make a big smiley sun around their heads, doing the whole little-kid song-and-dance to it.

Which had been choreographed and taught them by Brian’s grandma.

And then we wiped a tear here and there, glad for how the silly song had made us laugh. “And that’s the way that it’s supposed to be!”

Marguerite put an arm around me tonight and reminded me that mourning doesn’t all come at once–and that therefore the knitting doesn’t all have to be finished at once, either.

Don’t ask me why, (the Brian we remember is in that link) but somehow I’d forgotten that.

One stitch, together with one stitch, then one more at a time, time after time, to hold them in love till the end of time.

I needed to immerse myself in work.  The house is cleaner now and guests were fed tonight, with Michelle and John preparing as much as I did. It did us all good.

I had two unfinished lace scarves, and considering the pair for several moments, I picked up the one that didn’t require much out of me; just a little more of my time. The one I’d thought I was going to finish Saturday night after Nina’s birthday party, before we heard the news.

A little water and wire, now, to bring out the best in it so it can be ready to go forward wherever it may need to go.  Created with love, to be sent forward for peace.