He was gobsmacked.

A week ago, as a middle-aged widower himself, he grieved with me at the sudden passing of my friend Robin the day before. He had never met her, but deep and personal loss, that he knew even better than I.

Today I told him I had had this machine-washable wool and I’d wondered…and then, as I’ve said here, it had just felt like she’d settled my question re a plain watch cap vs something cabled, how to know what he might prefer: that instant feeling of her laughing and the words, “You have the skills, what do you think they’re for?!” How I’d laughed, too.

How it had come to be like this, then. And I thought, Robin’s still blessing people.

I thanked him again for helping us out Friday a week ago and explained that it was a honeycomb pattern for the bees that make all of life better–for, well, everything and everyone. Truly, nothing else would do.

The man is a master gardener. He looked at the hat and at me and held it close to him and exclaimed, “I will treasure it for the rest of my life!”