If you’ve read the 9/11 Stories on this website, you will know Bar Scott.  Bar and I shared a friendship that was short in the scheme of things,  intense in it’s beauty and insight and served an enormous purpose in my life.  Bar is a singer songwriter from Woodstock New York who lost her very young and only son Forrest to a rare liver cancer when he was just 3 1/2 years old.    The last day of his chemo treatments was 9/11/01.   I met Bar the following winter,  two months after Forrest’s death.  I couldn’t imagine a more painful loss.  The death of a spouse includes a mature understanding that comes from our wedding  vows: ’til death do us part.”  To lose a child is an entirely different thing.  Bar and I bonded immediately and began and incredible journey together producing The Voices of Inspiration sessions and concerts.  Our friendship lasted for several years after 9/11 and culminated when I  helped produce her beautiful album Parachute with several other people that was a tribute to Forrest.  Parachute was the compact disc that I sent to over 1,200 people as a thank you gift for all the love and kindness that had been shown to us over the years and was my tribute for the Fifth Anniversary of 9/11.

I made Bar the second-ever Cozmeena shawl out of off-white chenille acrylic yarn.  Looking back on it, it wasn’t the best choice of yarn but the love I put into it was sincere and pure.  A funny story:  when I went to block it (iron it with a wet pressing cloth) on the ironing board, I actually melted one entire end so that I had to cut if off and reknit it.  A huge lesson learned.  I mailed it to Bar in Woodstock so I wasn’t there to present it to her and properly wrap it around her.  When I touched base with her last year as I was starting this website, she told me she had remarried and moved to Colorado but the shawl hadn’t made the trip.  No worries.  The first shawls were about figuring it all out anyway….