I am a control freak.  I'll be the first to admit that I need to know exactly what is going to happen, and I tend to get upset when things don't go to plan.  So when my son, Benjamin, became ill last weekend I felt pretty good taking care of it at home.  He is the youngest of our four children and I figured that having been through colds, rotavirus, major surgery, etc, with the others that his cough would be a walk in the park. But, as the week went on, he seemed to get worse and worse, and we ended up taking a ride in the ambulance to the hospital.

His health was out of my hands.  I wasn't able to take care of it at home...which meant that I had absolutley no control.  Being here at the hospital, I know he is going to be all right.  The nurses are wonderful, and they are able to give my six week old baby the kind of care that he needs.  But I really felt like I was helpless and useless when we first got here.  I can feed him still, I can comfort him, but that is really the only role I have to play in his care now.

I just happened to have a crocheting project in the van.  I sent Tim, my husband, out to get it for me, and I set to work while Benjamin was sleeping.  I felt better.  I could sit the in the rocking chair and count my stitches rythmically.  The flow of my project was soothing.  I found a bit of comfort in the predictability of my color changes, watching the growth of the hat I was making for my son.  As I sat there with the yarn in my hands I realized that for the past four years I have found my little islands of control during crises by crocheting.  A lot of the projects may have never been completed, abandoned to the back of the closet once I was able to make sense of what was going on around me again.  Some of them became gifts, or went up for sale in my store, or are being played with by my kids.  But every one of those projects was special because they gave me a small measure of peace.