The sorrow never quite goes away

You never quite realize the impact of someone's life on you until that life is suddenly taken away. You see a face in the hall, say hi, have a little conversation. Then one day that face is not seen in the hall. You think, oh he moved on to another job. He went to another department, he left to work for another company, he moved to another town.

Then someone comes up to you and tells you that this person has committed suicide.

I got the news about Joe on Friday. At first there was some confusion about which Joe it was, then there was confirmation. I remember a guy who was by all appearances easygoing and unruffled. He was a musician who loved jazz and played professionally. He worked because the music didn't pay enough. We talked music occasionally -- I talked about my gigs and he talked about his.

It didn't really register with me when he disappeared from the hallways. The company was moving departments out of the building so it was not unusual for familiar faces to suddenly not appear. I was caught up in my world at the same time so I didn't even ask about Joe. It turned out he had left to go to another job but was trying to come back.

All potential employees go through a drug test as part of the hiring process. Joe was back when he got word that he had failed the drug test. Apparently he had been using for some time and it was a problem in his marriage for when his wife found out she threw him out of the house and said she was going to sue him for divorce.

Friday was a quiet day. Those that knew Joe were shocked. I grieved for him but thought that would be the end of it and I would move on. But while I spent Saturday going out and being with people, that night in my dreams I was with Mom and talking about what was happening in my life and woke up grieving for Joe. I will miss him and his easy laugh.

Back to knitting.

It's this kind of silliness that drives the sorrow away. ToolMan was looking at Karen's felted Kureyon bag and thought it worked well as a French Canadian settler's hat. He has a good point, don't you think?

The Witt socks are coming along. I had a bit of Second Sock Syndrome, but once I hit the heel flap I flew around the heel. I'm now on the gusset decreases and will be up to the ribbing.

Saturday was supposed to be rainy, soggy, icky -- perfect knitting weather if one wanted to stay indoors. I didn't want to wallow in the dark so planned to go out to work on Witt's socks and look for particular green yarn for making socks for myself. The weather turned out much better than expected. In addition, I learned of a new test knitting opportunity Friday evening so I added an additional stop to my yarn jaunt.

My stop at Knit/Purl yielded not only the Camelspin yarn I needed for the test knit but also enough Kauni yarn to make a sweater. During a knitting gathering I attended on Super Bowl Sunday, one of the knitters was working on a sweater in Kauni yarn in the rainbow colorway (EQ). It was a Greek key pattern that utilized the two colors in relatively equal amounts so that the color changes. I was so enamored of the way the sweater was coming out I tossed the idea into the back of my mind for a future project. Knit/Purl is the only source in Portland so while I was there picking up the test knit yarn and hunting for green sock yarn, I checked out their Kauni shelf. There was just the right amount for a sweater. Last night I couldn't resist testing out a chart I had done for a felted bag with the Kauni and made a coffee cup cuff to swatch it up on size 3's.