I’m not sure I heard the name right and I’m not even sure of the gender so we’ll call our singular-them Alex.

The first time I saw them I wondered why a child that old was wearing a hat like that: a particular cartoon character on the head of, at a guess, a 12-year-old. It was bright and cheerful, though, definitely.

Alex arrived at my friends’ house shortly after I’d gifted their foster mom with a cowl.

I clearly know how to do knitterly things: and so there was a request, and then a knock at my door–that hat. It was damaged, see, here. (They asked again, to be sure.) Could I…?

I looked Alex in the eye and promised to do my best but had to admit up front I could not make it as good as new. They were fine with that and I came away feeling like the three, the foster mom and her daughter and Alex all felt it was in the best hands now and I was relieved that Alex seemed fine with leaving it somewhere else for awhile. No hurry, the foster mom repeated: if I could bring it to church on Sunday that would be great.

This was a few hours before the fall and brain slosh that left me unwilling to risk driving until further notice, so I was glad there was no pressure on that one. The left side of the computer monitor has gone back to being the same size as the right side now, but still. No way.

I looked it over after they left. Tiny yellow stitches on the outside, black ones on the inside and a bear to see the details. I put it down.

Tonight it dawned on me that hello? Procrastination is not going to win us anything here, that kid really needs that back! I sat down with it at last, a little stricken at my negligence that had almost cost them another week’s wait.

Ooooh, mannnn… The thing was made as a quick throwaway: no selvedges, no interlocking holding the knitting together, no pride in doing it right, just raw machine-knit ends sewn with a fast line straight across with the thing turned inside out and then turned right side back out to hide the seam, so that if anything happened to that, say, if it ever got a little stretched putting the hat on a head a little big for it now, every stitch and every row in the inner and outer knitted fabrics could unravel and the whole thing fall apart into a mass of squiggly ends. Which is what had started to happen. What a mess. But at least it hadn’t gotten too far yet.

There. Did it. What a relief.

Oh wait.

There, and there, and all the way around the chin flap and oh, nooo, over there, too, I thought I was done…

And as I carefully hand stitched it back together through loop and loop, side to side and back again, squinting and hoping and doing my best and mentally composing this post, I wondered who had given this to Alex and why it meant so much to them still.

I wondered if a loving grandmother had proudly put that bit of fun on their head and sent them off to school with it–and when.

I wondered who had belittled them for wearing it.

I know that many foster children own not so much as a suitcase but their belongings are whatever they can stash in a trash bag to carry with them from place to, maybe, hopeful place. This hat had made the cut for them and they were in a good home now.

I wondered who this child was going to be when they grow up–but I knew in my bones that I would do anything for them to feel the love and support that was rightfully theirs from the day they were born. Alex is a great kid.

I’m not taking a picture of that cartoon character nor describing it further because it’s not mine to share.

But I know this: Alex will get another hat. It will be handknit. Alex will choose the color and the fiber. It will not be a replacement, nor an inducement… It will simply say, for whenever they need to hear that message, that I care about them and my love goes with them wherever they go. Too. For as long as that hat can hold it together, and when it can no longer I will make another for as long as I am here on this earth to do so.