Cyndi Cargen, 1962-2007

I'm jolted out of my daily routine by sudden and unbelievable news. A friend has passed away.

When I was pregnant for Simon 2 1/2 years ago, I started going to our local yarn store on Monday nights to knit with whoever showed up. The group has shifted some over the months & years, but it's been a relatively consistent group for the past year or so. A few months ago I joined the local Chamber Singers choir which meets on Monday night at the same time, and I got a little teary at my last Monday night knitting - I felt as though I was leaving a family. I was, in effect.

Last night I got a call from one of my Monday knitter friends. She wanted to let me know that Cyndi, another of the Monday knitting regulars and a friend of all of ours, had had a stroke on Tuesday. She lost half of her brain function within a day or two and by yesterday (Friday) morning Cyndi was declared completely brain dead. She was being kept on life support for a short time because Cyndi was an organ donor. Her generosity continues even though her life will not. She was 45, a wife, a mother of two pre-teen boys, a loyal and generous friend.

When I first met Cyndi it was about halfway through my pregnancy with Simon. I know I was more emotional and sensitive than usual, probably due to the pregnancy hormones, and Cyndi's manner of speaking her mind, boldly, whether you wanted to hear it or not, was abrasive and offensive to me. I didn't like her at all.

Within a few months this same manner grew on me, and became part of what I most loved about her. She was unflinching in her honesty, which is actually a rare and respectable trait. And while I was initially turned off by her because she seemed to have something to say about every single thing, I realized in due time that she actually KNEW something valuable about almost everything.

One day there was a woman who came to knit and spoke about her international travels - I don't remember which country, but I do recall that it seemed to me like a slightly more obscure one. And Cyndi piped in about some town she'd been to - and I thought "is she serious? How is it possible?" but it was. And quickly she became the person whose opinion I most valued about so many things - because she really had done it, been there. Whether it was making homemade croissants from scratch to delicate perfection, organic gardening and composting, building things, home schooling her two boys, or coming up with a clever way to earn income by having a sharp eye for quality, she continued to amaze me.

One of the most exciting things to hear about was their house project. Cyndi and her husband and two boys have been renting a house in town and building a "green" house on some land for the past few years. They're doing permaculture and rain catchment and all sorts of sustainable practices - and building this property up to be as sustainable as they could. This is the kind of thing I'd ideally love to do, but I feel daunted by it. Cyndi demystified so many things for me - she'd quickly shrug and say "oh it's easy" to almost anything. It's because of her we finally started a compost pile in the backyard. She was right - it is easy. By next spring we'll have fabulous compost. She was going to help me with our garden in the spring...first by bringing llama beans (poop) for fertilizer, and then by helping with some of the planting strategies. She had given me an envelope of seeds from her loofah plant, which grows some squash-like vegetable that can then be cut and cleaned and used as loofahs for bathing. The llama beans came from our local llama rescue where she took her boys on a regular basis to help care for them.

Cyndi was one of those people you can't help but watch and learn from. Through the knitting group I realized how widely her vision and generosity reached. I don't know what her personal financial situation was, but she was truly a philanthropist at heart. Last fall she started knitting baby hats - not because she knew people who were having babies, but simply because she knew that there would be babies in need of hats. She began making two at a time, and recruiting other Monday night knitters to make them as well. Cyndi was hard to say no to when she got an idea in mind. A small pile of baby hats began to accumulate on the table. I mentioned this to my First Born home visitor - First Born is a local program developed to support first time parents and their babies prenatally through the child's third birthday. Every client receives a hand knit hat from their visitor once the baby is born, and the elderly woman who had been knitting most of them was no longer doing so. So Cyndi found her recipient. I don't know how many times she went to the First Born office, delivering a variety of lovely hand knit baby hats, but she certainly kept many a Grant County baby head snug.

Then just after Christmas last year she started talking about a Red Scarf Project. She came in with 8 or 12 inches knit already of an intricate and beautiful pattern that would become a lovely red scarf. Again, she began recruiting others to join her in the project. Scarves made in any shade of red - or with some red accents - were being gathered by a certain date and then she was shipping them to an organization who distributed them for Valentine's Day to high school aged children in a foster home who had not been adopted.

Later in the spring or early summer she began collecting old cell phones. I don't even remember the details surrounding it, but she collected a small quantity of them from our little group of knitters and shipped them away to yet another organization - which recycled the phones and somehow made them usable & gave them to people in yet another challenging situation.

Cyndi had a passion for giving to the more vulnerable populations. I don't know what it was that drove her compassionate and humanitarian urges, but in retrospect it strikes me as being very Christ-like. Who else did Jesus most tenderly reach out to but the poor, the elderly, the children, the crippled? Jesus gave the most loving compassion to those who hadn't experienced it in abundance, and those were exactly the groups of people Cyndi seemed to be constantly seeking out in order to give what she could of her time, talents and treasure. If only more of us could be as passionately compassionate!

I loved watching Cyndi with her boys. In the past few years whenever we've gone on vacation we've hired her boys to watch our cats. Cyndi would water our plants and sometimes even clean up a few things in the kitchen we'd not gotten to before leaving, and the boys would scoop the litter, feed and water the cats, and give them some attention and affection. The first time we hired them, she came over a few days before our vacation with both boys in tow. They had a notebook with certain prompts and questions already written in it, and they proceeded to ask us a variety of questions. What was the vet's number? What time of day should the cats be fed? How much food do they get at a time? Can they go outside? We answered their questions and Cyndi encouraged them to write everything in their notebook. I could tell that she had talked to them at length in preparation for this responsibility of cat-sitting, and I admired & greatly appreciated her thoroughness. Every day of our vacation Cyndi would drive her boys over to care for the cats while she puttered about. She accepted nothing from us for this service, and we paid the boys an amount that she, and they, and we felt was fair for their help. Our cats were never better cared for than on those vacations where the Cargen family came over.

I keep coming up with more stories and things I'd love to share, and maybe tidbits will continue to show up here. But for now, it's time to wish Cyndi well on her incredible journey to whatever lies beyond.

We Monday night knitter friends (family, really) are planning meals for a week or more to bring to Cyndi's family who are left behind. We are also knitting squares of various colors to string together into a prayer flag that we will give to Cyndi's husband and boys. Prayer flags are a tangible way of acknowledging our connection to the Divine Mystery, and as the flags blow in the breeze and fade - or even disintegrate - by the effects of the elements, we can visualize our prayers for Cyndi's journey and the peace of her soul being carried far on the wings of the wind.

Blessings on the journey of your spirit, Cyndi. Watch for an ofrenda from your friends and touch down to say farewell during the Days of the Dead before you head off for good. Our needles are busy, our hearts our hurting, and our yarn and our prayers will follow you for a long, long time. Monday night knitting group, Silver City and the populations of those in need of compassion will never be the same. No one who knew you remained untouched, and we were blessed to know you. We love you.

October 6

Happy 6th anniversary to us!

Guinea (pigs...and otherwise)

I have a dear friend named Rob. He's amazing in the kitchen - working toward being a famous pastry chef, and not just in our little town. He's already earned that title here.

Sometimes we are the guinea pigs for his dessert creations. Most of the time we are thrilled by this opportunity. It's a good night when Rob calls up and asks if we want dessert because he was baking all weekend and can't eat any more. Sometimes we get a perfect little two-person-sized portion, sometimes he brings over an entire cake. We eat what we can, and sometimes end up sharing it with more friends too. Rarely do we get a gomer, but we'll give a "thumbs down" if we think it necessary. This is a good arrangement.

This past weekend we had Rob & Tyler over to eat a sort of "finger food appetizer" dinner, and watch a movie. They walked in completely laden with containers and bags full of food items. Tyler rolled his eyes and said "they're all desserts."

I often tease Rob for being overly obsessive/compulsive and anal - but I feel I can say this without malice (in fact, with love and humor) as I see the same characteristics in myself. Actually, we've grown to calling each other "brother" & "sister" because we are curiously similar. This particular evening is one situation where I ribbed him mercilessly and told him I'd have to write my parents about it - "Guess what Rob made us do?!" - and yet, silently I was a little jealous I hadn't come up with the idea.

He brought over 4 different desserts: flan, chocolate surprise, almond genoise (which is pronounced "jhen-wah" but we persisted in calling "jeh-noisy" just for Rob's cringes & laughs), and some kind of custard. All of them were small enough servings, so it wasn't too bizarre that he would have brought four different things.

The crazy/interesting part was that for each of the four desserts he had made three different recipes - changing only one ingredient: the egg. His experiment was to discover the effect of using duck, chicken, and guinea eggs.

Before we got a plate or a fork, we were handed a pen and a paper with a chart on it. Four desserts listed along the left with space for tasting notes ("comment on texture, flavor, favorites," etc. I don't remember the whole list b/c I don't speak "pastry chef") and across the top of the page were the numbers "1, 2, 3" so we could make distinguishing notes & observations in each "box" as we tasted.

Twelve bites of four desserts later, we were told which eggs were used in which desserts. We compared our notes, Rob said "fascinating," and smiled, and we told him which ones he should never make again.