Funeral – That Crafty Cara

As previously mentioned, our family has spent the last few weeks dealing with the passing of Michael’s stepfather, Carl. This required two separate trips back and forth to eastern Montana amidst both rainstorms and flooding in Washington and snowstorms and ice-covered roads in Montana.

As one would expect, I looked at these upcoming fourteen-hour long drives and immediately began planning a creative project or two to work on. I find knitting to be my best “in a moving vehicle” project, so on the first trip out I packed both my Wee Woolly Sheep Ornament in-progress, and the materials to start making some Fair Isle Christmas ball ornaments. It turned out that I was too keyed up and stressed to be able to work on those projects, so no real progress was made.

Wee Woolly Sheep knitted Ornament in-progress, made with gray and white yarn.

Wee Woolly Sheep is a fiddly pattern, the Fair Isle Christmas balls are too chart-heavy…neither is good for truck knitting.

Arne & Carlos knit Christmas Ball in-progress, made with blue and white yarn.

We had to make another trip back for the actual funeral, so I decided to pack something easy to work on: The Better Days Sweater, which I started at some point during the COVID shutdowns. It’s at the point where I just have to work the body of the sweater in plain stockinette stitch, so I figured I could handle that in the truck.

Sleeves and bottom ribbing of a handknit yoked colorwork sweater, made with gray, aqua, and white yarn.

Well, I could have if I had had the correct size of needles. #strikeone

And if I hadn’t cast on only enough stitches to fit a child’s torso. #striketwo

Derailed further by the fact that the sleeves are long enough for an adult, but with a number of stitches cast on for a kindergartener. #strikethree

“No worries,” I told myself, “I’ll just find a local yarn shop in Billings and buy some new needles and then take care of business.”

The closest yarn shop to our hotel in Billings was Yarn Bar, so we set out for it amongst the ice and snow. Rachel accompanied me into the shop and we both stopped in our tracks upon entering because it was so beautiful. Shelf upon shelf of rainbow hues and tweedy goodness, all brightly lit and displayed with obvious care. A rack of knitted baby sweater samples to stroke, cute hats on mannequins. Fun and happy colors everywhere you looked.

After all the stress of travelling, all the care and worry about the funeral preparations, all the anxiety over the weather…I walked into a yarny wonderland and felt all my troubles lift for just a little bit. It was a sorely needed balm of color and joy that warmed my heart and stoked the embers of inspiration that have been lying too ashen and neglected for too long. I could have sat in that shop all day.

I was responsible and only bought the needles I had planned to buy, but I really wanted to take a lot of their tweedy yarns home, and I spied another Christmas colorway of the West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4-ply that I made my Stripey Christmas Socks with earlier this year. I might have to go and order that after the holidays in preparation for next Christmas.

It was such a warm and inviting space to visit, I absolutely loved it and wish I lived closer so I could frequent it often. It had a lot of the same feel as the now-closed Churchmouse Yarns Bainbridge Island location and the old Black Sheep Wool Company in Salt Lake City before it was transferred to new ownership. I love that homey, traditional ambiance of those types of yarn stores. It’s the traditional wools, tweeds, and good old-fashioned colorwork patterns that really do it for me, knitting-wise. There’s just not a lot of stores that go in that direction anymore.

I was so glad to have had the experience of stopping by Yarn Bar and feeding my soul with all that color and those yummy yarn vibes. I wish I’d taken pictures of the shop, but Michael was circling the block while I completed my quick errand, so I had to hurry away. Oh, it made me so sad to leave that beautiful place, but I kept that feeling of happiness-in-color in my heart as we traversed the blue and icy Montana landscape for the rest of the weekend and on the long journey home. I have new ideas in my head for some really pretty projects that I can hopefully get going on after the holidays.

How good it is to be creative souls that, in the midst of bleak weeks and stressful moments, can just pop into a shop for a moment to be soothed by the materials and tools that we work with to create our art. Such a blessing.

Which is more than I can say for my attempts to resurrect my Better Days Sweater. Truck-ice-skating down the freeway hampered my desire to knit, so I gave up on the idea for the trip home. Now that I’m firmly situated on a stable surface, I’ll be picking it back up soon.

We received news that my husband’s stepfather, Carl, passed away in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. He’d been put on hospice care in the late summer, so it wasn’t surprising news per se, but still sad. I was battling COVID at the time, and the decision was made that Michael and I would drive out to Montana to keep his mother company until other siblings could arrive. We pushed our departure date back over and over in order to give me more time to recover from the dreaded virus, and when I was finally feeling well enough to travel, we headed out.

Once in Montana, Michael jumped into working remotely, which left me to hang out with his mother. She asked if I would help write the obituary for her husband, to which I said yes, and once that task was completed we turned our attentions to planning out the actual funeral. It was rather enjoyable, weirdly enough. I did a quick search for an LDS funeral program outline, chose this one to work with, and then we just filled in the blanks. I got to listen to my mother-in-law recount stories of her beloved, and explain the relationships and funny back stories of the people that she was asking to participate in Carl’s funeral. We wrangled Michael away from work to go out for lunch and run errands in the ice, and it was a really comforting experience to do all that together.

We had left the kids at home because Renaissance is a fully-functioning adult with a job and we figured that Rachel and Nathaniel could be trusted to get dressed and get on the bus to school all by themselves. So, of course, many things that could go wrong tried to go wrong. Renaissance’s car alternator died on her first drive into work, but she phoned a friend to come pick her up from the side of the road where she waited for the tow truck to arrive. Two days later, after she drove my car to work, she came out at lunch to find it had a flat tire. Co-workers helped her change it and she took care of getting everything repaired that night after work. Nathaniel fell asleep on the bus on his way home from school the next afternoon and missed his stop, so he ended up at one of the elementary schools. As luck would have it, I have a friend who works there and a few texts later he had a ride home once the elementary school got out for the day. Rachel did pretty well; but you could tell in her voice that it was a stressful experience for her. When Michael and I returned home a week later, we were met by tired kids who took a couple of days to look like they were comfortable in their own skins again. It was an interesting experience.

The funeral was scheduled to take place the next weekend, so we loaded everyone up in the truck and headed back out to Montana again amongst all the chaos that was the start of that crazy Pineapple Express that flooded Washington State. We had to detour off the main highway at one point due to a mudslide, and we later found out that the road workers we saw putting pilons on another highway we drove were closing the highway right behind us. We barely got through. Upon getting closer to Billings, we encountered a pretty good snowstorm that had us slipping and sliding a few times. We arrived at the hotel frazzled and exhausted. It’s a fourteen-hour drive in good weather and we still made good time, but it felt incredibly perilous throughout the journey.

The Brooke Family in their truck on the drive to Montana for a funeral in winter

All of Michael’s siblings came to Montana for the funeral, so it was nice to connect with them again for the first time in over a decade. They’re scattered around the country with families of their own, so it’s hard to meet up. I think Michael has seen them a few times over the years, but with my back being so bad I don’t do a lot of travelling, so I think it’d been fifteen years since I’d seen most of them last. It’s weird how life has moved on for all of us; we’re all parents of teenagers and adults now. Last time we were together all those kids were mostly toddlers. Life marches on.

Western Cowboy Funeral Flower spray with cowboy hat and rope/lariat at a Montana funeral

The funeral itself went really well; we had beautiful flowers and a lovely program arranged. The urn was really lovely, too. It would feel weird to post a picture of it, but if you’re in the market for a custom engraved wooden urn, I recommend Wooden Box Company.

Snowy winter view of the Rockvale Cemetery in Montana

As sad as funerals are, I really do enjoy them for the stories of how the departed tried their best and what memories the survivors are going to cherish as they move into the future. I always walk away from a funeral inspired to be a better version of myself. I also walked away from this funeral with painfully cold toes because I totally spaced the reality of what a graveyard in Montana would be like in December. Michael’s uncle from Alaska walked ahead of me and packed down the snow so it wouldn’t spill into my dress shoes. (It’s the little things.)

Rachel Brooke at a winter funeral in Montana

We hit the road the next morning, skating our way across I-90 through Montana. At one point we were sliding at a good speed down the freeway, diagonally, and Nathaniel yelled out, “I don’t like playing this game!” That is now our family’s new thing to yell out when things aren’t going our way.

We left the snow and ice in Montana to return to the rain and floods in Washington. Goodness gracious, what a wild handful of weeks. As luck would have it, the two days of school that the kids missed to travel to the funeral were cancelled on account of the flooding, so they had no homework to make up upon their return. And then school was cancelled another day this week due to a huge tree coming down across the main road to the high school, and it’s been a smattering of two-hour late starts on other days. Absolute chaos.

We’re lucky though; we’re not down in the valleys so our home is at no risk for flooding. Michael’s commute has been two to three times longer than usual this week due to flooding and closed roads, so he’s absolutely exhausted. I’m really looking forward to the quiet of Christmas Break so that all of us can relax at home and recover from all of this. It’s been four weeks of non-stop upheaval and stress. Whew!

And now I’m fitting all of our Christmas activities and festivities into one week. Wish me luck!