A stitch in time offers tender hug to hundreds in Oklahoma

The 90-year-old knits shawls for the Joan E. Matzo Comfort Shawl Project. But since she’s in Perryton, Texas, and many of the recipients — hospice and other terminally ill patients — are in Oklahoma, it’s her way of giving them a tender hug.

Trayler’s daughter Roxana Morton of Oklahoma City heard about the project through the University of Oklahoma College of Nursing.

"I had a bunch of old yarn and I just got rid of it,” said Trayler, who will knit one to two shawls a week. She has about 20 ready to be delivered.

Sometimes she goes with her daughter to the College of Nursing at The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center to deliver the shawls of many different colors. Trayler is one of many contributors who either make the shawls or donate yarn for those who do.

Marianne Matzo, professor at the College of Nursing, said the program started in 2005 and, since then, about 1,200 shawls have been donated and distributed. And there will be more.

"We went in one day and a nurse saw a blue one and took it right away,” Trayler said. "She said, ‘I know where that one is going. We have a little boy who had cancer and he wants everything in his room blue.’ That said to me, ‘You’re going to continue this.’”

"My sister died from uterine cancer seven years ago,” Marianne Matzo said. "I wanted to start a program to honor her. She was a very crafty, talented seamstress, artist. So, I thought a comfort shawl program would honor her love to create and help people facing serious illness and the end of life. To palliate means to cloak. So, we cloak literally with the shawl, figuratively with the comfort of a hand-crafted shawl and practically with a shawl that will keep them warm.”

So volunteers knit or crochet shawls, any pattern or style. They accept adult sizes, child sizes and "very small” ones for premature babies, Marianne Matzo said.

"Thank You more than you know for the beautiful throw. My mom received a Royal Blue and off white one. With the weather we have had this week she has had it on her legs and said she has never been so warm!”

Marianne Matzo has heard from knitters who talk about the people that they honor by knitting. She’s heard from women who sit with their husbands while they get dialysis and knit. She’s heard from seniors including Trayler who find a purpose by contributing to this project.

She’s heard from a woman who wrapped in the shawl at the bedside of her dying mother. She’s heard from a woman "who holds her dying premature baby wrapped in one of our shawls.”

The world is spinning so fast.

Love like this, the love that goes into the shawls and the love from donating yarn, slows it down just enough for us to appreciate those we share it with.

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