I want to tell you a story about a group of people not in some far-off remote village, but in an apartment building in a bustling city.
It was one of those apartment buildings that’s so big that most people who live there don’t even know the neighbors on their floor! Maybe they know someone across the hall, or right next door… but more often than not people travel through the hallways with headphones on their face glued to their phone screen.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever lived in an apartment building before? (Many of us! I still do! So we have lots of experience with this.)
The people that EVERYBODY in this particular building knew were Lee and Sal. They lived on the 6th floor at the end of the hallway, but they were always out and about. Lee always wore a purple cap, and Sal was always chipper. They both greeted folks by name, asked how they were doing, and even remembered the children’s birthdays!
One day, after Lee and Sal hadn’t been around for a few days, a neighbor from the 6th floor bumped into Sal in the stairwell. Sal was not their usual chipper self… and actually looked quite sad. The neighbor asked Sal how they were doing, and Sal shared that their beloved Lee had passed away. A gifted listener, the neighbor had a conversation with Sal about their grief, and about how Sal felt as if the blanket of warmth and love that used to wrap around them… that was Lee’s presence… was gone.
As the neighbor continued on their way after the conversation, they had an idea! They could make Sal a grief blanket! A dark, warm cloak to wrap around them during their time of mourning. They knew some churches had knitting ministries, so why couldn’t they be their own kind of knitting ministry!
When they returned to their home on the 6th floor that evening, they pulled out their old, wooden loom, and began rummaging around for fibers… fabrics, threads, yarns…
Not only could they not find anything in black, they couldn’t find anything at all!
But they remembered that they’d seen a young man in the lobby knitting the other day, someone they recognized from floor 6. If he has yarn maybe he has fabric or thread or something that will make a blanket!
The weaver asked the knitter, who didn’t have any black fabric but did have some red yarn. And he knew someone from the seventh floor who sewed. He was excited to both give some of his yarn to this effort, knowing and loving Lee and Sal himself, and also pass along the message to the sewer.
The seventh floor sewer was sad to hear about Sal’s loss. She had loved Lee, too. And she didn’t have anything black but she DID have some yellow fabric. She was happy to contribute what she had. And she had a friend on floor 2 with a small child who always had the cutest little boiled wool shoes, and they looked homemade. So she offered to ask if they had any spare wool.
The second floor family were, indeed, into boiled wool crafts. They had always admired Lee’s purple boiled wool cap. They were so sad to learn about Lee’s death, and thrilled to contribute to a blanket… they did indeed have extra wool to share… it was purple, not black, but there was plenty of it.
The second floor family asked their neighbor who asked their friends on a different floor, and soon enough the 6th floor weaver had an apartment FULL of fabrics of all kinds, yarns and threads and mystery materials… definitely enough to make a blanket. None of it was black… but they were sure Sal would understand.
So they got to work at their loom. They wove from side to side while building-mates they’d never met before dropped by to see how it was going. As they wove they got to know their neighbors better…grown ups, kids, elders… it was like an unexpected open house! They swapped stories and reflected on their love for Sal and Lee.
Eventually, the blanket was complete. The weaver held it up… it was lumpy and bumpy and crooked … and it contained every pattern imaginable, every color of the rainbow. It wasn’t what they had imagined giving Sal. But as they held it in their hands, they knew it was just right.
The next day the weaver knocked on Sal’s door and Sal came to the door wrapped in a black fleece blanket. The weaver, seeing Sal already HAD a grief blanket, began to move the lumpy bumpy rainbow garment behind their back, embarrassed… until Sal’s face lit up and they exclaimed— “and what is THAT?!”
“It’s for you,” the weaver said, holding it out to Sal. “We made it for you, so you’d be wrapped in love by… well… all of us.”
“All of us?” Sal asked?
“All of us,” the weaver said.
In the end every single apartment in the entire building had contributed something to the blanket. Sal was delighted. “Lee would have LOVED this,” they said, still in disbelief that so many people not only knew who they were but contributed to make this precious gift.
They knew the road of grief would be long, and winding. But realizing that though they lost their beloved companion, they were wrapped in the love of an entire community with all its lumps, bumps, patterns and colors… life felt possible again.
Over time, as Sal emerged from their grief, they noticed that not only were they better connected with their neighbors, but that their neighbors were more deeply connected with each other. And for the first time since losing Lee, they did not feel alone.