People are Amazing

One day, my husband came home from work with this pretty package under his arm.

Inside, a beautiful knitted blanket for the baby.

I was so grateful, but became even more so when I read the printout of an email he had received from the blanket's maker. He had written her to thank her and here's how she responded:

"Actually, the thanks have to come from me. Your child will come into this world having already given a gift beyond value.

"I worked on your baby's gift on endless trips to and from Williamsburg and Richmond, in more doctors' offices and waiting for more calls from physicians than I can remember now. Beginning last October, when we cycled through that heart-stopping vocabulary - lump, biopsy, tumor, lymphoma - and thankfully ending in a soft landing of much more gratefully received vocabulary - genetic disease, benign, operable. And all of these unthinkable words being used about our daughter.

"All the while, I was blessed with the gift from your son of something to do with my hands so they wouldn't betray my fear, my anger, my helplessness to my little girl, who at 18 and then 19 still counted on us to be intelligent, capable, and strong. Each stitch a breath, each row a prayer.

"So thank you from the bottom of my heart. My daughter is well, and I am so beholden."

We will treasure this one forever.