Good from Grief

This week, I learned that a Residential Mentor from my high school, the Arkansas School for Math, Sciences, and the Arts (ASMSA), passed away. His name was Dan Benton, and he was a great, funny guy who loved watching movies and listening to music. He's pictured here on the left in a pink pastel vest and tie that he wore to my senior prom. We called him "Dan-ger" and "Dan the Man," and he always, always, always had a smile on his face. Thursday morning, he got into a head-on collision driving back to Hot Springs. And I can't believe he's gone.

When I found out, I started crying and felt really lonely. So, the first thing I did was hop on Ravelry to find the perfect grieving pattern. Yes, I knit when I feel sad; my addiction has gone that far. I wanted something colorful, slightly challenging so that I could focus on something but not so hard that it would frustrate me (because I didn't need frustration on top of my grief). After looking through the prayer shawls, I thought they were all too stuffy to fit Dan's carefree personality, and I finally decided on this great pattern called "Simple Fair Isle Hat." It's been in my queu for a while, but I never found the inspiration to make it. I chose my colors (two blues, a grey, and a beige), and cast on, gauge be damned!

Between classes, hanging out with other ASMSAers, and sleeping off my tears, I finished the hat in just over a day. Gathering the stitches at the top and weaving all the colored ends in, I felt peaceful. I no longer felt the need to be sad over Dan's passing. I know that he's gone. But I knit all my sadness, all my grief, all my loneliness, and all my shock at the face of death, into this colorful hat.

And as I finished it off, tried it on for the first time, and took pictures, I listened to a song by Yellowcard. It's one of my favorites, and the in the lyrics they say, "I'm sure the view from Heaven beats the hell out of mine here." Ain't that the truth.

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Note: I'm having a hard time attaching the photo of the hat to this post because it's a huge file, so I'll try to attach it at a later date, in case it's just my computer screwing up, but if you would like to see a picture of it, you can click here. That should take you to my Ravelry project for the hat, which I titled "Mad Hat-ter."