It’s New Year’s Eve!
As the New Year dawns, I hope it is filled with the promises of a brighter tomorrow.
Have a safe and fun New Year’s Eve!
~Pali & Vanessa
Archive for December, 2015
Merry Christmas!
We wish you lots of love and hope during this holiday season.
<<So I think I am obsessed with penguins this time of year>>
May you be surrounded with love and good food this Christmas!
We are ever so thankful to have you as part of our community and send love, peace and hope to you and yours, from Knitting Rays of Hope!
Wishing you a Merry Christmas!
~Pali & Vanessa
Christmas is Love
Christmas is Love! Take extra time to show and treasure the love around you!
As the holidays approach, and we hustle and bustle around, I hope that you take a few minutes to stop and remember that Christmas is Love, and to love and appreciate your family and friends. Show your love this season!
Merry Christmas!
~Pali
Christmas Blessings
Our good friend, Becky from Blessings Through Raindrops sent us a box full of these goodies (23 hats– so many different sizes, stitches & colors)!
Here are so many new stitches and embellishments! Becky continues to improve her craft and makes us fabulous hats to help spread hope!
These adorable little treats will make everyone smile! Becky’s card reads:
A few more hats for you- hopefully in time for Christmas! I have been having so much fun making these, I hope that they will bring joy & comfort to the little ones who wear them! I am working on a bunch more– learning new stitches & hopefully helping a little bit too! Thank you again for all you do to make this happen! I hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
We are really impressed with Becky’s aptitude to learn new stitches! We can’t wait to see what the next box will have in it!
~Pali
Special Delivery: 107 Hats & Headbands for the NICU
Last week, we delivered 104 tiny hats and 3 headbands to a Kaiser NICU in Ontario.
104 hats and 3 headbands
The Ontario facility holds special, though bittersweet memories for me, and we deliver hats to the Chemo Warriors in my sister-in-law’s memory. With a heavy heart, I walked into the Ontario NICU to deliver these hats for all the beautiful babies in my sweet niece’s memory, who was born straight into heaven at 32 weeks in November.
Emotions flood and definitions of everything I am feeling are blurred, but I am definitely filled with a deep sense of gratitude for all who have sent us hats to enable me to make this special delivery and to be able to spread hope and love. I am also proud to say that with this delivery, Knitting Rays of Hope has been able to deliver 3,212 hats since we started this up. We are making a difference in the world, and I know that my sweet angel baby niece along with all of our angels in heaven are looking down on us.
Sending blessings, hope and love…
~Pali
Teddy Bear hat and Memorial Card for my baby niece’s services
Special Delivery: 240 Hats for Cancer Warriors
We are ending this year on a happy note, with huge smiles on our faces. When we started Knitting Rays of Hope, we had big ambitions and always wanted to donate to the City of Hope, a cancer hospital that is very close to us. But we always wondered if we would have enough hats to meet the needs of such a huge cancer center.
Last week, my mother and stepdad delivered 240 hats & scarves to City of Hope! We are so proud of this grand accomplishment. It’s our biggest delivery for cancer warriors yet, and we couldn’t have done it without you, all of our Team Hope knitters!
A little about City of Hope (from their website)
City of Hope is a world leader in the research and treatment of cancer, diabetes, and other serious diseases. We deliver scientific miracles that make lives whole again.
Compassion is the heart of our approach and the driving force behind all our discoveries.
Founded in 1913, City of Hope is one of only 45 comprehensive cancer centers in the nation, as designated by the National Cancer Institute.
Each innovative treatment we create gives people the chance to live longer, better and more fully.
Ms. Linda receiving the hats from my stepdad
My folks met with Linda, from the Philanthropy and External Relations department, who was very appreciative of these hats.
At City of Hope, we combine science with soul to make miracles every day.
Our grand total to date is now 3,105 hats delivered! We are so excited to see how far Knitting Rays of Hope has grown! We hope that we will be able to sustain this volume to keep all our local hospitals loved and warm. We thank each and every one of our team members who helped make this possible! We are blown away by how creative, generous and caring all of you are- striving to make a difference in our world! Keep spreading hope!
~Pali
A Love Letter to the Cycle Breakers
I stumbled across this great piece written for parents striving to raise their children differently and thought it was very inspirational and touching! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did—
There are superheroes among us. Disguised as ordinary moms and dads, members of this league of extraordinary parents change diapers, pack lunches, and tuck kids in at night just like the rest of us. But behind the scenes, they battle forces of darkness none of us can see.
My dad was one of these superheroes. I was unaware of it through much of my childhood, though the signs were there. I don’t remember when I first took note of the cape tucked neatly under his sweater vest, but by the time I left home, I had some idea of how much time and energy he spent fighting the villains in his head.
Growing up, I heard stories and parts of stories. A grandfather beating his wife before chasing his sons down an alley with his police pistol. A mother plagued by alcoholism and anger. Six siblings from six different fathers. A precious violin smashed to pieces in a drunken rage. Bit by bit, the picture of my father’s upbringing was painted in blacks and blues. He didn’t tell us everything—just enough to give us a sense of where he came from. Superheroes must keep some secrets, after all.
Now that I have three kids of my own and a keen understanding of how difficult parenting can be under the best of circumstances, I recognize my dad for the cycle-breaking hero that he was. I’m well aware that the hell he lived through as a kid, simply by being born into a wounded family, could easily have been my own fate. The cycles of addiction and abuse, the inheritance of personal and parental tools in need of serious repair, the passing down of bitterness and rage like family heirlooms—I’ve witnessed these phenomena in other families over the years. It’s the easiest thing, for mortals to be human.
But at some point, my dad stepped into a phone booth and vowed to be more than the sum of his upbringing. He took on the monsters that followed him and declared war on the dysfunctional demons he carried. He chose to give his children the childhood he didn’t have.
And for the most part, he succeeded. I remember fun family vacations, laughter around the dinner table, prayers and hugs at bedtime. I can still see my dad giggling to the point of tears when my brother announced his pet rock pooped on the floor. I can smell his famous hash browns cooking with Stevie Wonder blaring on the record player Sunday mornings. I can hear his voice filling the room at choir concerts, plays, awards ceremonies, and graduations—“THAT’S MY DAUGHTER!” He was always proud of me. I always knew I was loved, deeply and sincerely.
But there were battle scars he couldn’t hide. I remember watching him leave in the evening to attend ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) meetings and wondering what went on there. I recall pleasant but wary visits with uncles and grandparents and a dim awareness of extended family member drama. I still feel the grief of my dad’s beloved younger brother’s suicide when I was ten—too young to understand that my sweet, funny uncle had been fighting the same war as my dad, but had lost.
And I did witness occasional losing battles—jaws clenched, eyes flashing as the demons surfaced, changing the weight of the air in the room. I remember moments when my mother (a superhero in her own right) calmly tamed those monsters. I remember staring them down myself once, begging my father to fight harder before he silently carried the beasts off to battle alone. He always apologized for battles lost.
But I remember many more battles won. Struggle and strength manifested in deep breaths and strained brows. There was a speed and energy to his movements when he took on the rage monster. I instinctively knew to step lightly, to give him space to build his fortresses and strategize without distraction. In time, I discovered some of his weapons—faith, prayer, books, routine, decompression time, classic rock albums—and saw how much easier the fight was if he kept them well-maintained and at the ready.
I know it wasn’t easy. I’m sure he feels he failed us in some ways. My dad wasn’t perfect, it’s true. But neither is any parent—or superhero, for that matter. All have their kryptonite. But the fact that he kept returning to that phone booth defines his fatherhood for me. I admire my dad for many reasons, but none so much as his courage and fortitude on his internal battlefield.
I’ve met others like him in my adult life, and they all amaze me. It takes superhuman strength and stamina to fight the good fight every day, to drown out the dysfunctional dialogue in your head, to overcome anger and abuse. Cycle-breaking parents face a megalopolis of tall buildings, and those single bounds have got to be exhausting.
So if you are a parent from a wounded background striving to raise your kids differently, if you are silently waging your own battles the rest of the world can’t see, I want you to know that you are awesome. Parenting is damn hard, even with good psycho-emotional tools, so naturally it may feel impossible sometimes. But you’ve got this. Keep choosing that phone booth. Don’t give up.
When you feel weary, remember this: The rewards for your efforts are vast and far-reaching. You are protecting your own family, yes, but your feats also positively impact society at large. Raising kids with minimal damage is a gift to the world. Seriously. How many great thinkers and potential trailblazers have been held back by the scars of their upbringing? How much of the pain people inflict on one another is a byproduct of generations of abuse or neglect?
So wear that cape proudly, cycle breakers. Don’t be afraid to give your kids clues to your “secret” identity. You don’t have to tell them everything, but offer them a sense of what you go through in order to shield them from the darkness. I am so grateful to my dad for tackling those demons for me. Your kids will thank you, too.
Knitting Rays of Hope 