I lost my daughter in 2014, she was very ill but her death wasn't expected.
I decided to find something to occupy me to distract me from her death as I felt she'd not want me to wallow. I took up knitting and crocheting as I'd done it in the past and found it therapeutic, plus there are enough free patterns on the internet that I never get bored. I stopped doing it when my daughters illness got very bad in 2008.
12 weeks after my daughter died, my niece who I am fairly close to as she's the same age as my daughter and they were good friends as well as cousins, told me she was pregnant.
I was so happy for her that I decided to make a very special patchwork blanket. I did neutral colours as DN didn't find out what she was having. I decided to use an old jumper of my daughters to incorporate into the blanket as a way to show my daughter was looking out for this baby.
Well my Great Niece is now 2 and a half. She loves the blanket. My DN has just posted a photo on Facebook of GN lying on the sofa with her "baba" (what GN has named her blanket) captioned "It's too cold, so I'm just going to watch TV with my "baba"". I feel so pleased that my GN loves the blanket, as a lot of my heart went into the blanket. I see them regularly and GN carries the blanket round (even though it's bigger than she is) and it's her comfort object and her favourite thing in the whole world - she takes it to Nursery and sleeps under it at night.
I'm probably being UR to be both pleased and slightly sad about this. I'm crying feeling that my daughter is looking out for this very special little girl but also sad she's not here as she'd have loved the blanket and loved GN.