She Knitted Things

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My good friends lost their mom and grandma back in December. We are such good friends, in fact, that I’d only ever called her “Nana.” Nana was known for her knitting and quilting, so at her memorial, her family hung her quilts in their kitchen for folks to look at. They filled a basket with gloves, scarves, and socks she’d knitted. We all got to finger through the basket and pick out something to keep, and I chose a shawl that I wear to church. When people see it, they ask if it’s a “Connie Shawl.” It reminds me how we still refer to our kitchen cabinets as “Frank’s Cabinets,” after the Christian man who built them. A tree is known by its fruit, and these people have become known by the beautiful things they made.

This sounds strange to say, but my favorite kinds of funerals are the ones where the family lays out things their loved one made while they were on earth: poetry they wrote, or art they made, or Coca-Cola bottle caps they collected. As Christians, we’re quick to remind each other that You Can’t Take It With You, that the hearse won’t pull a U-Haul of belongings to your grave. And of course, there is a legacy that lingers long after a Christian is gone, as intangible as the scent of a flowering tree, that death cannot touch.

But it’s also heartening to know that a Christian’s faith reached into the work of their hands on earth—that they used the fingers God gave them to make tables and cabinets, blankets and shawls, enough to leave behind. “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children,” says the Proverb.

The phrase that comes to mind is the one used to describe Tabitha in Acts 9: Full of good works and acts of charity. One of Tabitha’s “good works” was that she sewed things. We know this because those mourning her death showed Peter the tunics and garments she’d made. But Peter put the mourners outside because they were living in an old reality. Tabitha was not done fulfilling the good works God had prepared beforehand, that she should walk in them. He raised her back to life, back to her good work of mending things.

Many families grieve, and some cling to their loved one’s belongings as if they’ll bring them back. This is living in an old reality that is no longer true. Other families—like the friends I mentioned—grieve as those who have hope, looking ahead to a New Earth and also appreciating the work their mom did here. She was full of good works and acts of charity, she knitted things, and that is as beautiful a eulogy as I know.

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