Grief

 About 17 years ago, perhaps even a bit more, I had to take my son to the children's hospital in Landshut because of an irregularity in his heart beat, and for a while we thought he might have a problem because of a small hole in his cardiac septum. When a second inspection a few months later showed that everything was fine because the hole had closed up I was, of course, relieved tremendously. While waiting for procedures during these visits (and later, too, whenever we had to spend a Saturday afternoon in the emergency room of that hospital because he had dropped a heavy air pump on his toe which then had to be puntuated in the toe nail to relieve pressure, or stuff similar to that like lively boys do) I saw a small poster about a charity project by the former Medical Director of the hospital who had gone to live in Ruanda after he retired, performing surgeries on children that could not easily be obtained there and had set up a charity called "Kinderhilfe in Ruanda" to support children and their families. I was so relieved that I could take a healthy child home who did not need any surgery, and who had all the medical options and opportunities spread out before him that I started supporting that charity.

I donated all revenue from my one and only knit-along to them.

Picture from ravelry of one prototype of my
shoulder wrap that was the topic of the knit-along.

 

Whenever I am giving away a quilting book, utensils or fabric that I don't  need anymore and people ask me what they owe me for that I request they make a donation to that charity instead.

Dr. Jahn wrote a book about his story - he grew up in Eastern Germany, left the country in 1963, served as a doctor on a ship in Vietnam, and was the long-time medical director of that children's hospital in Landshut before going to Ruanda, which I read several years ago and which impressed me deeply. Not only was he performing surgeries, he also took in homeless children and made it possible for them to attend school and learn a trade.

I have never met Dr. Jahn personally, although I know that acquaintances of ours know him, and I was always thinking I would try and ask them whether we could arrange a meeting should they know if he was coming to Germany for a visit. I was shocked when I read in the paper a couple of years ago that he had been attacked and robbed - by a former protégée! He barely survived but then again continued practising medicine for children, and helping their families, heavily affected by post-Covid effects on food prices, or floodings. Sometimes he would send an email newsletter to keep supporters informed, sometimes a short notice would appear in the local paper.

Today I read in the paper that he passed away in Ruanda recently.

 I am sad about this. A completely self-less person, who put his entire being into the service of others, particularly children. But I was glad to read in the final paragraph that two adoptive sons are planning to continue his work in cooperation with the organization in Landshut. There will be opportunities again to ask for donations, and I wonder whether I should run the knit-along once more? I'm afraid I don't have time right now to concoct a new one, but as I gave away every single prototype I made, and the scarf I knitted while the knit-along as well I don't have one for myself, so it would be a good way to get myself a scarf for myself, after all these years.

I have written about the Christmas postcards Dr. Alfred Jahn used to send and am wondering whether his adoptive sons mentioned in the article will send one this year, too. Or whether I won't receive another letter with stamps from Ruanda again. It used to be one highlight during the pre-Christmas season to see the beautiful card inside... May he rest in peace.

Serious Destashing.

A friend of mine had mentioned recently in a message that she needed to find some ways to raise funds to buy fabric for her group which gets together regularly and makes what commonly are called ‘heart pillows’ here in Germany: heart shaped pillows that are distributed to breast cancer patients on the respective wards. I admire and respect those kinds of activities, even though I don’t participate in anything like that. So I offered her that I would go through my boxes and pick out some fabrics that they could use. After all, there is an abundance of fabric stashed away here that will never get used, at least not by me in my lifetime. And as my husband has been talking more frequently about ‘downsizing in preparation for a next move’, even challenging me by boasting how much he has done... (yes, he did reduce his huge collection of CDs the other day, and I admit I have much more stuff than he does) I figured it wouldn’t matter at all to give away some of it. This activity developed into a serious crisis for the accessibility of my studio, but it turned into a flow eventually. 

Chaos that will hopefully lead to some sort of order...

 

In the end I posted a package with more than 17 Kilograms of fabric to this group (the carton in the upper picture, more on the right). I could have posted at least another package of the same size, but I withheld from sending ‘all my brown fabrics’ as I thought that color is not really appropriate for that purpose. Did get rid of almost all my pinks and purples, though. Not my colors, no need to hang on to them. And – do I really need three boxes of green? I hardly ever work in green, I wonder where all that came from. Lots of green scraps, too. Anybody want any? Just let me know!

A couple of days later,  this destashing extended itself into a thorough clearing of book shelves. My son wants to use the room where my longarm is not longer blocking everything, but there are book shelves in there. Our library. He wants those shelves to take up less space, i.e. dismantle at least one or two sections.

I have always been a book lover, and I love buying and having books. For a while I was regularly going to a Women’s Bookstore whose owner was a friend, to support the business, or I was collecting literature from female authors from the early 20^th century. But my husband – correctly - keeps saying we need to size down as he thinks our next living quarters will be much smaller. So I went through the shelves, pretty rigorously, taking out books in three different categories: the stack to read now and then decide whether they will stay, the stack that can go to second hand books or the newly introduced book box in town, the stack which is not likely to find any appreciants around here (mostly English language books, alas, I don’t know anybody here who reads English). 

After I went through, the gaps are getting bigger.
Now it's my husband's turn, and then things will get pushed
closer together.

 

The rearranging of the room as such will happen according to the Junior’s plans.

As it turns out, I started on one of the books from the stack 'read, and then decide', and it happened to be a book I bought in 1994, then still an English academic person, so it has moved at least 5 times, if not 6 or 7, it might actually have come from the States with me. As it turns out, although the author is famous, and I do admire her for her position in literary history and some other aspects, this particular book proved to be rather dated with respect to certain opinions, and racism. I could perhaps tolerated it had I still been an academic, but since I am now only a reader for pleasure, I do take the liberty to not finish books that are too backward, or that don't catch my attention. I read only one of the three stories, started each of the other two, decided against them, and then it went into the bin. So Junior's desire has been helpful indeed.