"My fingers hurt,"' moaned the novice crocheter.

I keep saying I’m not a crafty person. I never have been, but I’m starting to believe I have a crafty gene expressing late(r) in life. Inspired by family and others, I want to learn to crochet.

My mother paints, sews, makes gorgeous cakes, and arranges flowers like nobody’s business. There’s few things she cannot make after looking at it long enough.

My grandmother crocheted beautifully. She’s now living with advanced Alzheimer’s. It’s incredibly painful, emotionally, to see her – a strong, brilliant woman – ravaged by such an enigmatic disease that eludes a cure.

I had the privilege of knowing my great-grandmother, who also crocheted warming works of art. No doubt that’s where my grandmother learned. My great-grandmother, too, suffered from Alzheimer’s until the age of 92.

I have numerous blankets and items made by my great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. I regret asking too few questions of my great-grandmother and grandmother. I wish I would have asked them more about their childhoods, about the worlds they grew up in and raised their children in, about how they met their spouses. I wish I would have asked them how to crochet.

As I pick up my beginner’s crochet book and hooks I have no clue yet how to use, I am thinking of them. And of Alzheimer’s. Creativity and artistry is part of all of the women in my family. Perhaps Alzheimer’s is, as well.

Only time will reveal the pattern.