My Mom called me in tears one evening last December to tell me that an old high school friend of mine had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. What????? How could this be??? Candy is only a month older than me, she is still young, healthy and active. There must be some mistake! I clung to this hope of a mistake for a while, but that came crashing down when an exploratory surgery in late
December confirmed the doctors' diagnosis. I was devastated.
We moved from New Jersey to Virginia in the second half of my freshman year of high school. There is nothing worse for a teenager than to be uprooted at that age from their friends and all they have ever known growing up and transported to a totally different high school, much less state. I hated it. It was like moving to a foreign country. I had a very hard time adjusting. I was different. I was called "Yankee" (I wasn't aware the Civil War was still going on! I had learned from history class that it had ended long ago.) I was teased for my accent and I felt like I didn't belong, the ultimate disaster for a teenager. That summer I retreated into my room and immersed myself in books. Luckily for me in that same summer, a thin, long blond haired girl from up the street named Candy took the initiative to extend the hand of friendship to The New Girl. We became fast friends and for a while were inseparable. Eventually our studies took us in different directions and different classes. We eventually grew apart and lost touch after high school. Throughout the years, I heard about her from Mom who is still friends with Candy's Mom, Judy. I knew that she had moved to Japan for a while and that she had come back to the US a few years ago and was now living in Va. Beach. It didn't really seem like that long ago to me that we were in high school. Until that phone call. As I stood there in shock the realization of just how many years had gone by hit me full force. Where had all those years gone?????? Shock. Confusion. Anger. Disbelief. Horror. Fear. Sadness. I felt them all. I also felt helpless. There was nothing I could do! Or was there? Much as I wanted to reach out and cure her, to wipe the terror from her life, I could not. But I could let her know how much I cared. As I had during just about every turmoil in my life, I turned to knitting. I picked a beautiful shade of yarn of the softest yarn I could find and I started knitting her a prayer shawl. I also asked Mom to find out if she would like me to make her a rosary in her birthstone colors of peridot. She did. So I made her one of those, too.
Mom told me that Judy had brought Candy home here to Lynchburg from Va. Beach for Christmas. She was due to start chemo treatments in January. I bought a "thinking of you" card and mailed it to Candy and gave her my phone number and told her to call me if she needed anything or if she just wanted to talk. She responded the day she got the card. In mid January, Mom and I went to go see her. I took her the rosary. She read the Praying the Rosary instructions that went with it and smiled and said, "There is a lot here that this old Protestant girl can understand! It's not that different after all. I don't believe that there are separate entrances in heaven for the different religions." Neither do I.
Candy's Rosary
During that visit, it was just as if those years had never flown by. Just for a brief moment in time, we were once again those carefree teenagers with our whole lives in front of us and not a care in the world. She certainly looked much the same as I remembered. She still had those beautiful long, blond natural curls I had always envied. My hair is very dark and very straight. And she still had that naturally slender, athletic build. For me, weight has always been a struggle. So I had always envied her that, too. During that visit, I could almost convince myself that nothing was wrong. She was fine. Almost.
Candy and Judy returned to Va. Beach the next week to begin chemo. I continued my knitting on the shawl that was 2/3 of the way finished. As I knitted it, I thought of those two teenage girls and cried. I poured all the love, hope, prayer, good feelings and intentions and all the positivity I could into those stitches. In each and every stitch was a memory, a prayer, a hope, a dream. Now, I have this odd habit. Whenever I knit something that takes me a while, I become attached to it and I name it. The shawl started out as the Prayer Shawl, but as I knitted it, I realized that the beautiful blending colors reminded me of a kind of old fashioned candy that we used to have when we were growing up - ribbon candy. Thus the shawl's name became Ribbon Candy Shawl. Especially appropriate for someone named Candy, after all!
Ribbon Candy Shawl
Judy and Candy returned to Lynchburg the following week and Mom and I went once again to visit and take her the Ribbon Candy Shawl. She loved it and she really loved the name. She and Judy now also call it by its given name. Before they returned from Va. Beach, Judy had told Mom on the phone that Candy was losing her hair due to the chemo. I make chemo caps for the cancer patients using one of my all time favorite chemo cap patterns, the "No Hair Day Hairy Chemo Cap." As the fun fur fad has faded over the last few years, I had taken advantage of all the balls of it that I could find in the dollar stores and I have amassed a rather large stash of it for these really cute chemo caps. I took all of the colors I had with me to show Candy so she could pick out one. She chose a variegated purple color. Appropriate since purple is the color for pancreatic cancer. Candy still did not look that much different. Her long hair had been cut into a short chin length bob that was really cute on her with her curly hair. It didn't look thinner. But then she showed us how fast it was falling out. "Watch my parlor trick," she said as she ran her hands through her hair. She held her hands out and between the fingers was a great deal of hair. She was due to go back to Va. Beach the next week for more chemo. Judy said they would return to Lynchburg in 2 weeks. I told her I would have her "No Hair Day Hairy Chemo Cap" ready.
Candy's No Hair Day Hairy Chemo Cap
Two weeks ago when I saw Candy, I could detect the toll that the chemo was taking. She was now painfully thin and fragile looking, and her hair was noticeably thinner. She went back the following week for the last of the chemo treatments and she is due this week to have CT scans and other tests to find out the status of the cancer. From there, they will decide on the course of further treatments. Next on the list is radiation treatments. When those are finished, Judy plans to bring Candy home to Lynchburg to stay. When that happens, I plan on spending some more time with Candy. Mom and Dad and I plan to take her and Judy to the beautiful Awareness Garden dedicated to cancer patients and their families and anyone touched by cancer. http://www.awarenessgarden.org/awg/. There are lots of places I want to take Candy to see when she is feeling up to it. She has been away from Lynchburg for a long time, and much has changed. But the friendship we shared as teenagers did not change. It did not fade away and die. I realize now that we are, and always have been friends. I have a feeling I will be spending a considerable amount of time with Candy for another reason. She told me when I took her the chemo cap that she wants to learn to knit so that she has something to do while she recovers. She said that she really wants to learn to knit chemo caps for others patients going through the same thing she is going through. It is a request I am more than happy to grant. After all, what are friends for? And I have plenty of fun fur to share! I hope knitting brings Candy as much comfort and joy as it has me throughout the years. It seems fitting to me that knitting has created a bridge for us to cross the very fabric of time itself to reach those teenage girls we thought we had lost so long ago, only to discover they have been in our hearts all along.
