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Turning the page…

Thank you for your patience dear readers, it has been a difficult few weeks, as you can imagine.  Most of you who follow me on facebook know about the outcome, but this blog is not about what happens to me in life, it is what I do with it.  That of course will unfold with time.

Kevin Lancaster 1951-2016 [1]
Kevin Lancaster
1951-2016

My husband passed away last Friday, after a nine month battle with esophageal carcinoma.  He was only 65.  He was planning to retire this year.  He was planning to run with his newly acquired million mile status.  Life got in the way.  I feel sad for him, happy that he is in peace now, but sad that he had no more tomorrows to do all the things he loved.  He left me miraculous gardens, unmanageable really, but in the last weeks of his life, dozens of people came with gloves and buckets and tools and helped me weed, prune, muck out ponds, fix broken lines and leaking waterfalls, and lay 55 bags of mulch.  Friends hauled debris off to the dump, and on Father’s Day, after he had passed, I bought more fish for one of the ponds.  It seemed fitting.  I don’t know how I will manage this legacy moving forward, obviously I’ll have to simplify, but there is such peace on my hands and knees, pulling weeds from the dirt, making new pathways from overgrown detritus.

Garden5 [2]Garden2 [3] Garden4 [4] Garden2 [5] Garden1 [6]

I am starting the process of paperwork.  Many of you have kindly let me know to expect this to go on for a year.  Health insurance of course ended two days after he died, and it takes a few weeks to move into Cobra.  There is all the tidying up of a life well lived.

The viewing was surreal, many of you who have stood in that kind of receiving line know that it is a blur but it is a reminder of the impact we have on others, no matter how insignificant it may seem.  And in that long line (I heard there was an hour and a half wait to see me, my husband was a town official, much loved by many) about every 6th person was a knitter or a weaver.  It was as if the universe reminded me of who I am and what really defines me and that all of you would be waiting for me.  And the president of my weaving guild met one of the knitters from the library, and showed up Thursday night to join that group.  We are all connected, new relationships are formed.

I gave the eulogy at the funeral.  My husband did not want a religious service, but something that would memorialize him, a chance for those who loved him to laugh, to tease, to celebrate, to remember.  I talked about my husband’s life, apparently for half an hour, I didn’t time it.  For me it was like the keynote address of my life, I looked out at that audience and though I used a script, I spoke from my heart.  I was in my normal keynote at a conference address mode, and I held it together with poise and grace, I’d like to think, until I made the grave mistake of looking at my children.  Once I recovered, I was able to carry on and finish and then allow others to speak from their heart.  We ended with my son, in full military dress, singing ‘a cappella’, Amazing Grace.  There was not a dry eye in the place.  I don’t know how he got through it, but he is a soldier, and he is his father’s son.  He told me later he knew his father was beside him urging him on.

Many of you know my daughter Brianna, she spoke with elegance, with grace, with dignity, and with humor.  My children are my strength, and so are all of you my friends in the fiber community.

Last night, I began to untangle the mess of my studio, not being in it for a month, it became a dumping ground, I still had stuff to unpack from the Oregon trip.  Conference paperwork, guild teaching requests, orders for books, life continues, and so I must…

Sadly I did cancel my commitments for June.  We brought my husband home from he hospital and arranged for hospice, and I had no idea how long the final process of death would take.  It was important for me to let those affected know  as soon as possible I wouldn’t be able to participate.  I start to travel again the end of August, starting with my five day garment construction intensive at Harrisville Designs in NH, followed by Fiber College of Maine.  And then Sievers.  This is my 10th year at Sievers.  I have my fiber family there.

I have seen over these last few months the absolute best of humanity.  World events, politics, the presidential campaign that never ends, all of that just grazed by while real people, who care, who hold you up in the worst of times, who love, who share, who are really what this world is about; they all surrounded me and my children, and each other to help lay to rest a truly great man.  I love you all and could not have traveled this road without you.

Last night, I sat in my studio, my goals accomplished and work done for the day.  I picked up some skeins of yarn that were sitting on my cutting table under a pile of papers and other debris.  I have no looms with warps on them.  And so I sat, and started to plan.  Just me and the yarn and a calculator, and a pad of paper and a pencil.  There was such peace and gentleness around me.  All is well…

Yarn [7]