The hubs and I returned from a fantastic trip to Ireland the other day. This was trip #12 and we took a jaunt through the village that his great-grandfather emigrated from to the US. First 3 nights were in a lovely town called Westport.
As we sat in a local pub having a pint (or two!) we met a group of tourists from the US who were there for the 3d time. They were talking about the itinerary for their trip and one stop was Inis Mor, one of the beautiful Aran Islands to the west of Galway. We mentioned we had stayed a night there and toured the island on a beautiful sunny day a few years back. As we chatted about all the cool things to do, I mentioned that a "must do" was to go see Sarah Flaherty in her sweater shop outside Dun Aonghasa fort. I said that I had purchased a work of art, a pullover sweater, from her 4 or 5 years ago. She was famous; she had made it into a blog Rick Steves wrote about Inis Mor!
As the conversation continued with talk of other favorite stops, one of the ladies stopped and held her phone out to me and said tearing up she showed me the obituary. "Sally, Sarah Flaherty passed away 2 weeks ago."
My heart stopped. My heart broke. Wide open.
Sarah was not just an institution with her knitting, she was a force of nature. She was the epitome of what it is to be Irish and all of the love, kindness and humor of the people through and through. And boy did we have a time with her and a story to tell...
We had one full day and an overnight on Inis Mor. I told Tim that I HAD to find her and see her shop to feed my sweater obsession. After a lovely lunch, we walked into her tiny shop and I began to look at all of her work. It is nearly impossible to describe the artistry and beauty of Sarah's work. Handknit items by the Irish are works of art with a good deal of love truly woven throughout. Looking at the patterns, the stitches, the colors of wool that were her handiwork was like standing and looking at a beautiful painting or photo with all of the elements of it in concert together creating a masterpiece.
I picked up two green pullover sweaters; one deep Irish green, deeper than a forest green. The other was a beautiful sage green. The lighter was slightly shorter in length on me but no less stunning. I told Sarah I wasn't sure which I fancied and she said "well, you need to go outside there in the sun, try them on and let him see them and decide what he thinks."
I giggled a bit there, but the hubs followed me outside to witness the modeling. Now, I say I giggled because anyone who knows me knows that Sarah telling me that I needed to drag the hubs out for HIS opinion would normally elicit a pointed remark that it was MY sweater, I was going to be wearing it and it was MY money paying for it. But this tiny little Irish spark was running the show and I could not help but love her for it. And follow the game plan.
So, off we went and while I tried one and then the other sweater on, the two of them discussed which looked better with my hair color and/or my short build, and such. Sarah said to the hubs, "I don't know about you, but I think the darker one looks best, it goes with her eyes." He agreed. Well, so did I.
Game over. Darker one it was.
We went back into the shop and the hubs teased Sarah that she was famous because she had sold a sweater to Sharon Stone (so we heard.) Right away she wanted to know how we knew and we told her of the day's adventures with Noel the driver and tour guide we were with. When it came around to paying for my new work of art, we found that we were a little short on euros. We are notorious for using credit cards for anything and everything so that we don't have to carry cash. Now what played out next spoke volumes of who this amazing lady truly was...
She looked me straight in the eye and said "no worries dear, just send it to me when you get home."
For real.
There are some moments in life when you seem to feel frozen in time asking yourself if you really heard that right. Usually it is something life-changing or heart-stopping. It kind of felt like that because here was this amazing woman, who truly was creating pieces of legacy thousands of miles from my home telling me to just mail her a large sum of money when I got back. Trust, kindness, love. The hubs and I had to look at one another and wonder to ourselves if we heard her correctly.
"Sarah, I can't do that!"
"And tell me why not! It's not that hard, I'll give you my card."
I looked at the hubs and truly did not know what to do at this point. But he had his wallet open with US dollars in plain sight. She had an idea...
"Ah! You have some of that funny money on you. Do you also have that thing on your phone that figures it out?" She was asking if he had the currency converter app on his phone.
Together we watched as he did the conversion and gave her US dollars to pay for my beautiful sweater. She told us that it was perfect timing because the bank was open tomorrow; it's open one day a week on the island.
There I had it, a beautiful work of art and the woman who created it shared an hour of love and laughter with us. My final request from Sarah...
"Sarah, will you take a picture with me?"
"Ach, look at my hair, and I need a facelift at this age...NOW DON'T YOU MAKE ME VIRAL!"
The hubs and I laughed hard as her fingers fluffed her red hair and she struck "the pose" standing next to me.
I bent down to hug this sweet little queen of the faeries and she gave me a card with her information and washing instructions on the back. And off we went to have a pint.
Sarah's creation of the heart has been my "outerwear" while I was ice skating, while we were sitting outside at a local winery enjoying a crisp fall day, and on chilly walks in the dawning of spring. It's not something "made by hand" working a machine, it is Sarah. It is hand knit. It is the wool of the sheep on Inis Mor. It is Sarah's tiny hands and infectious smile and laugh. It embodies her heart, her twinkling eyes, her crisp Irish humor. It is a legacy for me to treasure and probably hand down.
And now that she has moved to Heaven, it holds the most important parts of her for me to wrap myself in and hold those memories close.
Rest easy and fly high Sarah. I treasure my jumper and our memories with you. And now I treasure my connection with your beautiful daughter Donna. Hmmmmm, did you engineer that? 💚💚💚
