I have been sad about having to say goodbye to a woman I adore and really, love.  We have met with her, my wonderful daughter and I, each week for nearly six years.  We have laughed and cried and grown, Oh my Lord, have we grown together. 

My sweet child was six years old when we met, and now she is, well, not six years old anymore.  Music had something to do with our relationship, something called a Suzuki triangle.  For about an hour a week, it was more like we were in therapy, where mother and daughter had the most wonderful interpreter, impeccable.  I love her. 

She is going home.  In a musical piece, there is often a part that repeats, wrapped around a ‘middle section’.  Our violin teacher spent her ‘middle section’, the part of her life where she moved away to make her own way, here in Colorado.  Now NY is calling her back.  Boo.  No fair. 

This sage green cashmere yarn matches our dear one’s eyes.  I would have knit this for her anyway,even if she weren’t flying away, I mean.  I have knit a couple of items for her over the years….a warm hat (when I learned to knit in the round and do cables) and some hand-painted socks (when I learned to knit socks).  Those items have some mistakes in them, and my violin teacher doesn’t care about that. 

 This shawl does not have any mistakes in it.  I’m a better Knitter, now. 

I’ve never had to say Goodbye before.  I know the world is smaller than it was in the past.  There is email, and flights can be found for cheap.  But when you see someone THIS often and then, no, you don’t see her anymore at all, that really is Goodbye, isn’t it? 

Check out this darker photo.  I like it:

One thing that I would have done differently if she weren’t flying away, is, I might not have taken such care in packaging, presenting this to her. 

 I probably would have taken a cheap shirt box and wrapped it up with unused Christmas paper.  But this is the end of an important chapter, and I HAD to mark it somehow. 

Instead of the cheap shirt box and Christmas paper, I found a butterfly-printed fabric (appropriate) and carefully cut out each butterfly around the edges.   I wrapped the shawl in brown paper, and hand-sewed the edges with leftover cashmere.  I placed the paper parcel in a new bamboo bowl, and covered it all with the butterflies.  I wrote in her card, with the care instructions, Goodbye, Butterfly!

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