PlainViews

Rev. Karen B. Taliesin on knitting with a purpose

Knit For Life™: A Healing Ministry

I was heading back to my office at the end of the day at Children’s Hospital when I was paged by a nurse on the hematology/oncology unit. I called the unit, and the nurse, laughing, asked, “Are you the knitting chaplain?” I laughed and said that I was. “Well,” the nurse began, “I have a mom here who is having a…knitting crisis…” We were both laughing as I said, “I’ll be right there!” Arriving at the patient’s room, I helped the mom with the sweater she was knitting and then reminded her that the “knitting experts” would be back in a few days. She said, “I know, and I can’t wait!”

The “knitting experts” are the women with Knit for Life™, a network of volunteers who use the healing experience of knitting to enhance the lives of cancer patients and their caregivers during treatment and recovery. The program was created by Tanya Parieaux, a breast cancer survivor, who brings Knit for Life to hospitals in the Seattle area. At Children’s Hospital, the Knit for Life team sets up in the hematology/oncology inpatient unit once a week with bins of donated yarn and needles, which are freely given to patients and family members interested in knitting. As a chaplain at Children’s, I became acquainted with Knit for Life as I stopped by the group to chat with patients and family members. Eventually, Tanya told me that I couldn’t “hang out” with them anymore unless I learned to knit. Before I knew it, I was knitting!

So I sit with the Knit for Life group as they visit and teach knitting. Not only is knitting fabulous therapy for me personally (enabling me to knit the prayer shawls we give away in our chapel), but by participating with Knit for Life, I connect with family members and patients who are hesitant to connect with a chaplain. Talking while working with our hands can alleviate the intensity of a one-on-one conversation, allowing patients and family members to talk with me casually as we share and laugh with everyone in the group. We may talk about our knitting but, invariably, the conversation turns to lab results, a mother’s fears, or an older brother’s worries. Often, family members will ask me to stop by their room later so, as one dad said, “we can really talk.”

Knit for Life offers an activity to help families get through the long weeks and months spent in the hospital. Tanya and the volunteers create a safe, loving, and sacred space. This holy ground was palpable one Monday after a long-time patient had died on the unit that morning. The mother of another patient was very upset by the death. As this mother, an avid knitter who attended Knit for Life regularly, walked by the group, Tanya and the others gathered her into “the fold.” We continued to knit and listened as she spoke sadly of the sweet child who had died. One of the volunteers slipped a pair of knitting needles into the mother’s hands and Tanya laid some yarn on her lap. Still talking and crying, the mother picked up the needles and cast on several stitches. As she began to knit, she started to smile and talk of the funny things the patient who died had said and done with this mother’s own daughter. At times, her tears would return and we simply continued to knit as she knitted through her grief. It was one of the most loving and gracious examples of ministry I have ever witnessed.

Knitting gives a bit of respite to those making their way through the mine fields of a child’s illness or injury. Knit for Life provides creative support to our patients and their family members. As one mother said, “While the doctors are saving my daughter’s life, Knit for Life is saving mine!”