With fluid grace the yarn slips through my fingers, looping and twisting to form something that will bring warmth and comfort.

Your face fills my mind.

I remember your measured words as you attempted to train my young, impatient hands with yarn, and fabric, and needle and thread.

I chose a pattern far too complex for my first time sitting at the sewing machine.

You cautioned against it, but allowed it all the same.

You believed in letting kids learn from their skinned knees and elbows if they were too stubborn to listen.

I never mastered the machine but the yarn now bends to my will-becoming a work of art from so many loose strings.

You quietly slipped from this world not long ago on a nondescript, spring Tuesday. 

It seems an unfitting end for such a powerhouse of a woman. 

I could not come to pay my respects-this virus banning such a gathering- so I will pay a different offering.

Every stitch of every row that comforts another will be in tribute to the woman who once tried to train my young, impatient hands.