Hangin' (and Healin') with the Hookers

After leaving the garage in my comparatively-silent car (oh happy day!), I headed to the Saint John Arts Centre to meet with the Carnegie Rughookers. I was a little nervous going in, mainly because it was my first time, but talking with Sande yesterday had done a lot to bolster my confidence. Add to that the fact that I'd been emailing one of the members (Carol Ann), who I knew through her daughter and a local poetry group, and I was okay.

What a friendly bunch of ladies! Paula, the lady I stopped at the Superstore two weeks ago, was there, and I got a chance to look at her "hooked bag" a little more closely. In fact, I got to look at all kinds of beautiful things! And everyone was so nice. I especially loved it when they looked at my almost finished rug, then asked how long I'd been hooking. "Since last Saturday," was my reply.

And it really is a small world. Or at least this corner of it.

(A little background: I was, in many ways, brought up in the small, tight knit community of Welsford. My "godparents", Joe and Vernice, lived in Welsford until I was twenty-one, and I spent virtually every school holiday with them. Ten years ago, a Welsford landmark, the Bayard covered bridge, was destroyed by a flood.)

The rughooking group takes a "tea break" partway through the hooking session, and I was taking the opportunity to look at some of the paintings in the gallery on the main floor. I was looking at a gorgeous painting of a covered bridge when I heard a sigh behind me. "We lost ours," one of the rughookers said sadly.

I turned around to look at this woman who had seemed familiar to me. "Are you from Welsford?!"

She told me she was and I explained how I'd spent so much time with Joe and Vernice Wood growing up.

"Karen? Little Karen ... You're all grown up now!"

We talked a little bit on our way back upstairs, about Welsford, and Joe and Vernice, and how I remembered visiting her house when I was a toddler, and how she and her husband used to play cribbage with my parents.

When we got upstairs, she announced to everybody that it was like Old Home Week. "Karen," she declared, "is from Welsford."

From Welsford. Just hearing that almost brought tears to my eyes. Small communities in New Brunswick are known for not readily accepting people as being "from" there -- it's something that's often chuckled about. When you factor in the fact that I've felt so lost, disconnected and without a foundation since Vernice's death and all the drama surrounding it, making this connection today meant more to me than words can express.

"Vernice and Joe were practically your parents," she said.

Yes. They were.

I honestly don't know if I'll ever get over the way I was treated by "the blood relatives" the summer of 2006. How they demanded my key to Vernice's house, barred me from visiting her in the hospital ... I felt as if they had erased my entire childhood, brushed away our bond like a line on a chalkboard. I felt like the ground had been yanked out from under me, and I've been searching for footing ever since.

But Joan remembers.

There are others who remember.

And I need to remember that.