We all deal with grief differently. I get that. I’ve been dealing with mine by trying to bury myself in things: getting Winter’s Secrets ready to launch, helping get my mother’s estate in order, helping my dad move into the next stage of his life. Pretty much anything to avoid dealing with the fact that there is a hole in my life, and no matter how much I shove into it, it’s going to be there.

It’s slowly getting better, especially now that Mother’s Day is over. THAT hurt, more than I realized. I even sent my husband over to be with my father, because I knew if I went over to see him, we’d both spend the day in tears. So I wrote instead.

There’s a few books on my Kindle that I’ve bought but haven’t read yet, because they were parts of series we were both reading, and I can’t quite bring myself to go back into that world yet. There are movies that I can’t watch at the moment, because we both enjoyed. I have yet to go back to Midsomer Murders or Inspector Frost, because she first introduced me to them.

But I’ve found another way to connect with Mom – through fibers. Those of you who knew her won’t be surprised. My mother always had yarn or thread or SOMETHING with her that she could work on. Usually knitting, but in later years, she fell in love with kumihimo as well. I’m a crochet person (my knitting is a work in progress) and I’ve discovered that by crocheting, I remember the good times with Mom, talking about yarn and learning how to make things. So I’ve decided that my way to deal with her loss is to take the gift she gave me and turn it into a way to help others.

I’ve sent one box to Hooking for the Homeless, a New Hampshire based group that collects scarves, gloves, and hats to help keep our homeless citizens warm. I love that it’s a NH charity, where the services are given here, in NH, with an eye to help out our most vulnerable. This was something Mom believed in – my last box had the last scarves she was able to knit before the cancer took away her fine  motor control. It’s soothing, too – there’s something about taking yarn and making even a simple scarf, and knowing that there’s a bit of my mom, still helping people.

If you want to donate, I encourage it. If you want to give me yarn instead, that works too. They’re looking for easy to take care of, mostly male/unisex colors.