View From a Prairie Home

by Hege Hernfindahl, Columnist

My grief comes in waves. Moments of total devastation where my tears stream like rivers of grief down my wrinkled cheeks. My therapy is reading grief books that tell me grief must be totally embraced or it will turn inward. Cause harm. I think of Erland’s enthusiasm and zest for life. The life that was and the life that never will be. And I scream of the injustice that he had to die before me. Before us. His mom and dad. But I also know that I must try to find peace at least. Grief and joy must coexist.

I know that joy is hard to come by. But I want to honor him by writing about him. I also want to help you deal with life’s many devastations. But I also want to find peace for myself, so I knit.

Knitting. Taking yarn and needles. Creating. Putting the needles together and creating something. I like to experiment with colors and patterns. With designs. What I knit doesn’t all turn out, but the act of knitting is itself calming and peaceful.

I recently read an article in the New York Times about knitting. How it is seen as innocuous and an activity reserved for old, usually white, ladies and thus trivialized. Just like old ladies are trivialized. But the very invisibility of women in general through history and especially the seemingly innocent activity of a woman knitting has served some very interesting stories of how cunning and resourceful women can be. 

During the French revolution, when heads fell, women would sit by the guillotines knitting. Into their stitches they somehow managed to knit a roster of the condemned. Women with different political views knitted the so-called liberty caps, which are red, conical with the point forward which represent the freedom for the tyranny that caused the revolution.

In the days of the American Revolution, women boycotted British cloth in favor of “homespun” with spinning bees. Molly Rinker, an American spy, tucked bits of information about British Troop movements into balls of yarn that she tossed to the patriots. Who would suspect an old lady with yarn and knitting needles of spying?

During World War I when soldiers were dying in the trenches due to “trench foot;” persistent wet toes, knitters came to the rescue. Piles of socks were produced enabling the soldiers to have enough to keep their toes dry. 

Knitting can make a statement.against clothing produced in faraway places using fibers made by plastics which, when washed, pollutes the oceans. In fact those fibers are the biggest threats to the oceans. The conditions of the fashion industry’s largely female workforce in Asia is deteriorating. This has caused the European fashion industry to rethink how clothing is produced. Their goal is that by 2030 all textiles should be reparable, recyclable and made, if possible, from recycled fibers free from hazardous chemicals and produced with respect for labor rights.

Which brings me back to Erland. One of the programs he headed in working with American Trade Policy was the Generalized System of Preferences, a duty-free program for imports from 119 low and middle income countries. He worked through the list of the 119 countries to make sure they adhered to the rules of using legitimate and humane methods to produce their exports. He also visited the countries to make sure their workforce was given a living wage and that they didn’t employ children. He received a Superior Achievement Award for his accomplishment, which he never told us about.

So in my grief for losing my kind and wonderful and modest child, I pick up my knitting needles. My tears still fall, but I feel peace envelop me as I knit.