Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Knitting to Bless Others!

Over the past few years, I have been knitting a lot of scarves & hats, shawls and baby hats and blankets. I feel like it has sort of a ministry that God has called me to. I love to knit, and have been knitting since I was 10 or 11 years old. Lately I have been making a lot of baby hats and giving them to new babies at our church. I recently sent a couple of baby blankets to a couple of young mothers whose blogs I follow. I sent a baby blanket to a local baby who was in our news, very sad story though...the baby Abbey's mom, Katie Flyte, was in her late twenties last summer and pregnant with Abbey when she contracted the swine flu and died from complications from it. Abbey was born several weeks early at only a few pounds, and her mother Katie never got to see her as she was in a coma. Abbey had to stay in the hospital from July till October then got to go home with her dad, Kenny and her older brother Jacob who is three now. A lot of local people rallied to help Kenny and there were fund raisers and People Helpers Fund from a local tv station, KOMO, gave money to help, as Kenny was a laid off construction worker who had just lost his young wife to swine flu and now had two little ones to take care of. When Abbey got to come home, I contacted an aunt of hers and was able to send some cute baby hats and rose pink baby blanket I knitted for Abbey...that was back in October.
On February 1st this year, there was a news story on tv that baby Abbey had stopped breathing in her crib after her dad put her down...he had gone back in to check on her, and they thought later that he had come in during the middle of a SIDS episode. Kenny gave her CPR and she's been in Childrens Hospital in Seattle on a ventilator with brain damage since then. Just a few nights ago, he had to make the decision to take Abbey off the ventilator and she went home to be with Jesus and her mother, Katie. They had the news story on last night that Abbey had died. I have been in touch with her aunt, Jill, after I heard what happened on February 1st and she said that there had been brain damage and the doctors didn't know if Abbey would end up with cerebral palsy, seizures and long term care for sure. She wasn't able to breathe on her own. After she was taken off the ventilator she passed away in her dad's arms a few hours later. She also was an organ donor and her heart valves will be donated to help another little baby.

Now it's just Kenny and Jacob.

I was thinking about Abbey the past few days and thinking about knitting and wanting to do something in her honor. I don't know what. Maybe knitting some things and selling them to give the money to Kenny and Jacob through the Peoples Fund at KOMO, or send something through the aunt I have contact with. Or knit some hats and donate them to the local children's hospital in her memory. I am not sure, but I want to do something, so I am praying and asking God to give me His thoughts and ideas about this.

Another thing I love to do is send out cards to people for all kinds of reasons...birthdays, get well, etc. 'Snail' mail is so much fun to send and receive!

1 comment:

Cindy said...

That's sad what happened to Abbey and her mother but now they are safe in the arms of Jesus. I love what you want to do with your talent. It's a blessing to be able to take what you love to do and find a way to use it to help others!