As many of you might have noticed, in photos, Will is usually sporting not one, but two hand-knit Star Wars hats. The origin of the hats is…
Back in November 2018, a friend knit this Star Wars hat for Will as he was heading into his upcoming pacemaker surgery (Her son had a similar hat that she had knit for him, that she knew Will really liked). While the procedure was simple, this would be the first surgery Will would be able to remember, given that all seven others happened before he turned three years old. On the date of Will’s surgery, November 20, 2018, Will wore his new hat to the hospital. He took it off for the surgery, but put it on later that day to leave the hospital. Since then, that hat pretty much remained on his head. As you can see it's black and gray, with Tie Fighters and Storm Troopers.
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| Before surgery. |
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| After surgery. |
For his 10th birthday in 2019, this same mom, seeing how much Will loved this first hat, knit him a second Star Wars hat. Instead of trying to decide which hat to wear, he just started wearing them both at the same time. As you can see below, THIS hat, is also black and gray, with Tie Fighters and Storm Troopers. The difference is that the Tie Fighters are black instead of white, and band with the Tie Fighters is white instead of black like the original one.
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| Will's birthday hat! |
From that moment on, he ALWAYS wore the two hats together. And he rotated them, giving each hat their own display time.
Jeff and I are unsure as to why there has been such an attachment to them. And if you asked Will, he can't articulate why. He wears them so much, that when he is required to take them off – for church, for restaurants, in the heat of summer – he has what we now fondly call “weak scalp syndrome.” Whenever you touch his hair, he yelps in pain. He is also happy to report that the longest he has been without wearing these hats has been 15 hours.
It is only in recent months that I have started to wonder if I should encourage him not to wear them so much. (He was once thought to be a cancer patient because he had recently gotten a short haircut and had the hats pulled down low.) But then I am reminded that it isn’t hurting anyone, and soon enough, he will attach to something else. Maybe there is a bigger connection between these hats and his pacemaker than he can express.
A few weeks ago, on February 9, 2020, Will asked if he could take his hats to church to wear after the service, because he and Jeff were headed to the Air and Space Museum. I said he could, as long as he put them in his coat pocket. He quickly stuffed them inside then headed off to Sunday School. Fast forward to that end of the day, and one of the hats is missing – the original one. He got teary eyed, worried that it would be lost forever. Jeff and I quickly reassured him that it was probably at church, and that we would look in the Lost and Found, when we went on Wednesday to make sandwiches for the homeless.
We went on Wednesday, and it wasn’t there. We checked again the following Sunday, and it wasn’t there.
Will seemed to move past this pretty well, partly because anytime he started to dwell on it, we reminded him that he still had his other hat.
Here are a few photos of one of the last times he wore the original hat:
Then just 15 days later, on February 24, 2020, Will lost his second Star Wars hat.
We had arrived in La Clusaz, France for our much anticipated ski trip. The first morning we are to ski, we wake up, bound out of bed, remove our bed clothes, which for Will means his remaining Star Wars hat, and put on our ski gear. We head off to the slopes for a great first day of skiing.
We came home, and Will was ready to put on his Star Wars hat. The problem was he could find it. We searched the room, tossed the sheets, emptied our bags, and nothing. We spent the next three days in La Clusaz, retracing our steps of the first day there. We looked through photos on our iPhones and realize he had it on when we got our equipment on Sunday and for dinner, but we are not sure if he took it off BEFORE the pool or AT the pool. Everywhere we asked, we came up empty-handed. Yet, just knowing it was somewhere in our room, in La Clusaz, gave Will and even me some peace of mind.
Until today. Today we left La Clusaz for Chamonix. We checked one more time under all the beds and mattresses. We asked again at the front desk to see if it had gotten mixed up in the linens. Nothing. So, we gave our email address, with a description of the hat, and left.
Will wore those hats 461 days straight.
Here are a few photos from that last day with the second Star Wars hat:
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| The view from our hotel in La Clusaz, France. |
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| Sibling love! |
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| Planning our first day of skiing. |
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| Good night, La Clusaz. See you on the slopes tomorrow. |
I never dreamt that such gifts would have become so cherished and adorned. I doubt my friend ever thought so as well. And now it is gone and I am sad. I am sad for what it meant to Will these past 461 days. I am sad, because this big part of him is gone. I am sad that I ever got frustrated when he wouldn’t remove it for pictures or even to sleep.
Every time he starts to tear up about it, he quickly becomes distracted and moves on to something else. But I am not ready to move on from the hat. Maybe it is because it is symbolic of the past and all he has gone through. Maybe it is symbolic of the future and all that he is leaving behind. Maybe I am linking it to us entering our last four months abroad as a family. I don’t know entirely what it is, but I know I am trying to sit with the sadness and just feel it. Mourn what is gone. I know they were just “things,” but they meant so much...
Rest In Peace, Star Wars Hats
Betsy
