Uncle Cancer by Crotcheteer

Fearless Leader's note: This is an article by Crotcheteer...she will be blogging here from time to time as the muse strikes. This is about her mother not mine, though I know those same loving thoughts go out from you to her, as you did to me. We can all give our darling Crotcheteer virtual hugs in this time of struggle in her and her mother's lives.


I’m a spiritual person by nature although not terribly religious. I seek order in the disordered ways of the world – which is probably why I speak in similes and analogies. I try to make sense of things by likening them to other things.

Part of my order-seeking is believing that things happen for a reason, sometimes multiple reasons. There was a reason I had resisted learning a fiber art for so long. It wasn’t time yet. Now that I have learned, it is something to fall back on in times of worry for the calming effect of repetitive motion as well to as use it to assist in whatever small way I can.

My small way this time will be making chemo hats for the one person on this planet who really knows me.

Up until now, Cancer for me has been like that weird uncle in the family no one mentions. The guy no one wants in any of the family photos for fear that they would have to acknowledge his presence. The reason your parents never want you to tell a stranger on the phone that no one is home. Recently, however, Uncle Cancer showed up and knocked on the door.

And he asked to speak to my mom.

In the coming months, he will eat everything in my mom’s fridge, burn cigarette holes in her furniture, kick her dog when she’s not looking, and scare my grandmother. My mother is a stubborn woman who taught me to slay the dragon first and then cry over my ripped skirt later so she’s not asking the doctors for a prognosis. She doesn’t want any preconceived notions about the outcome. I support that. I also know that there may come a time where she decides enough is enough. I support that too.

She's a tough broad, so I almost hesitated to ask her if I could make her some cool hats for when the time came that she would want one or two and she agreed, to my surprise…but not because she needs them…she can buy them if she wants. She’s letting me make them because all the hats she’s seen so far were ugly.

Thanks, Mom!

No really...thanks, Mom. Thank you for letting me help. Thank you for choosing to fight.



- Crotcheteer