I moved with my family to Anchorage, Alaska, in November 1991. (My first husband was in the Air Force and that was our newly assigned posting.) Our first Sunday at church, I met Joel’lene Anderson, a remarkable woman who quickly became my best friend. I taught Joel’lene to knit, and she took the skill and ran with it, surpassing anything I’d ever accomplished as a knitter.
I left Alaska in 1997 and haven’t returned, but Joel’lene is still my best friend. Even if we don’t talk for years, we reconnect and it’s as if we spoke yesterday. Joel’lene and I have been chatting weekly on Zoom for almost 3 years now.
A Fire in Alaska
Fast forward to September of this year: I received a text message from Joel’lene on Wednesday, September 17. Her house had caught fire the evening before and the entire top floor was a loss! She was fine. Her husband was out of town but returning the next day. All of her craft “stuff” was downstairs, but water and smoke had damaged it almost entirely.
Knitting Friends Step Up
I gathered up tons of stuff from my personal yarn/goodies stash, boxed them up and sent them to Joel’lene. Including some yarn that SHE had sent ME a couple of years earlier from a lady she knew who was cleaning out her stash. I sent an email to my friends at Twice Sheared Sheep a couple of weeks later after speaking with Katie during our regular Wednesday night Knit Group. She heard the story of Joel’lene’s situation and asked for her address in order to send a few things to her.
One of the gals at TSS, Jen, took the story and ran with it, as well. Just before my boxes arrived at Joel’lene’s temporary house in Anchorage, Katie’s box and Jen’s box both showed up. Joel’lene sent pictures of these boxes to me. She was tearfully moved by the generosity and kindness of women she had never met or even spoken with, who would graciously send boxes full of knitting things to a woman they didn’t know who had suffered a traumatic event in her life.
The box from Katie with project bags and yarns and all kinds of fun things
The box from Jen with a project bag and pretties from Twice Sheared Sheep
What I Love about Knitters
One of the things that I love about knitters is that no matter where we live or whom we know, we are a family of crafters. We have almost instant connections as yarn lovers, which seems to eliminate any barriers that we may experience with regard to caring about one another.
I feel quite privileged to be a part of this wonderful community—to have a hand in bringing my own communities of knitters/crafters together to enfold my dear friend Joel’lene in this marvelous harvest of friends.
Happy Knitting!