Claire LaZebnik
Knitting Under the Influence

Copyright © 2006 by Claire LaZebnik

For my mother, Cynthia Scovell.

The oncologist, a soft-spoken Canadian prone to understatement, described the cancer as “not indolent.” An appropriate disease for her then, since my mother was the least indolent person I knew. She was always moving-straightening up the place, puttering around the kitchen, making and returning phone calls, running errand after errand, soaring briskly along supermarket aisles, planning the meals she'd make when her five kids and twelve grandchildren came to visit, watering her plants and pulling their dead leaves off with a quick snap…

She wasn't a fan of sentiment and she never gushed. I miss her.