All throughout our lives, there are always going to be those "teaching moments" that present themselves in all sorts of ways, especially when they are least expected. There are also those moments that have a significance to them in that they will probably also never occur again. Looking back, there have been many of those between my mom and I: learning the piano, understanding the finer points of biscuit making, and gaining a better appreciation of keeping my head in the window of a moving vehicle. As a parent, it is exponentially more amazing when I get to witness her giving that knowledge to my daughter, a "passing of the torch" in some sense. While my wife is galavanting across the continents for work assignments, we flew my mom here to help with the child-rearing while I work. She brought with her a box full of craft supplies and in that is a collection of lap looms and many colors of yarn. They began to work on small potholders, eventually graduating to dish towel-sized blankets for her stuffed rabbit. Today, my daughter woke up and wanted to start right away on making another blanket for a toy animal and needed my mom to get her started. It was a great moment when I saw her hands guiding the shuttle through the strings with my mom assisting her. This photo of their hands is special in many ways, namely that they are working together, but that it transcends the generations as she learns the craft. Years from now, she will remember this teaching moment as she passes the knowledge of looms and yarns to her granddaughter, lighting up a young child's mind as they see the project unfold in front of her young eyes.
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