Connie’s room is the talk of the Mansion, is is crammed with boxes of yarn.
We brought her a dog brush to keep in her room, and she loves brushing Red. It is a nurturing and comforting thing.
Connie told me some of her back story today, she lived in upstate New York and she had a close friend, and their husbands went hunting together – he worked in construction.
While the men were gone, she and her friend knitted and crocheted, and they began selling sweaters and blankets and mittens and scarves. “We made a kind of business out of it,” she said.
She is deeply into this work again, I see it has given structure and focus to her life. It is very difficult for Connie to move around much, she needs an oxygen machine nearby to breathe.
She is insistent she does not want to sell the things she makes, she wants to give them as presents.
We offered to take some of the yarn out of the room if it’s too much, but she says no, she wants to keep it, she may start making blankets and sweaters. She means to give them away to people, and although she said she didn’t know where she would put any more, I see she is not giving any up.
Connie is already making baby caps for newborns at Albany Medical Center, three of the boxes she received this week are baby wool, three more, behind Red, are regular wool.
She is dumbstruck by your generosity, I think Connie was not ever given much in her life.
She surprised me by handing me a hand-written note on her “memo” pad and asked me to share it on the blog.
“I would like to thank everyone for your patterns and needles that you have sent. If possible, I would like a pattern for crochet baby hat and blanket as I like to crochet too and it would be nice to switch back and forth. Again, thank you very much.”
Connie asked me if it was all right to make that request, she wasn’t sure about it, and I said of course, people will help if they can and wish to, and not if they can’t. It is good for you to ask, I said, you have never asked for a thing, and I have asked you a hundred times if there is anything you want.
I just guessed right about what you wanted and needed. Now, it’s good to know what you want. There is an Army Of Good out there, I told her, and they care about you and the other people here. Red loved his brushing, by the way.
While at the Mansion today, I learned that they are in desperate need of a van to transport residents to doctors and take them out on field trips and shopping excursions. There are no funds to buy the van, so I suggested that they consider a gofundme project and I would support it on the blog.
I think they liked the idea. They are looking to see if a used one is available.
More later.
If you wish to write Connie or the other residents of the Mansion, you can do so at this address: The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. Several new residents are coming next week, but I was given a list of first names today of residents who wish to receive messages: Bruce, Allan, Sylvie, Jean G., John Z., Carl (Bob), John R., Alanna, Peggie, Ellen, Joan, Brenda, Christie, Connie, Alice, Madeline, Mary, Barbara, Bill H., Brother Peter, Diane, Helen, Jean A., Gerry.