This beautiful, soft, floral crochet mandala comes from 80-year-old Jeanette Dunham who has lived in Bloomington, MN for the past 50 years.
Jeanette has four grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. She started crocheting about forty years ago, after quitting smoking, and still loves the craft today.
Jeanette says that as soon as she saw Wink’s first mandala crochet pattern in Simply Crochet, she knew immediately that she would crochet them. She writes:
“They were so colorful and I love colors. I looked up A Creative Being and right away knew I would follow her on her blog. I think I have crocheted most of the mandalas in Simply Crochet.
I was so shocked by Wink’s death. I wanted to do something, so making a mandala in her memory seemed like a good idea. To me, she seems like a really great person. I felt like she was a friend when I would read her blog. I will miss her and send my sympathy to her family.”
Jeanette also shares:
I have had clinical depression for 25 years. I have had thoughts of suicide, but my husband has always been there for me. The only thing that helps me is medicine. I also know that if I didn’t have crocheting, it would be worse.”
For the depression awareness portion of today’s post, I wanted to draw attention to the statistics coming out of New Zealand that show that they are experiencing record high rates of depression right now, particularly among young people. The country has the second highest rate of youth suicide among all 36 OECD countries.
Researchers suggest that there might be a cultural component to the issue, specifically that the youth of New Zealand are lacking a cultural identity, which can led to struggles with existentialism that contribute to suicide. This specifically might account for the large number of suicides among the Maori people.
“We know connection to identity is a protective force. And there is a huge lack of access to a strong, cohesive cultural history in New Zealand. When Maori have access to their language, geneology, whakapapa and marae, they are really strong preventive measures against mental distress and suicide.”
Great video… so true not only for our friends across the ditch in New Zealand but also in New Zealand & I would imagine a lot of other countries… this girls video really does need to go viral even though that is not her intention… she speaks so from the heart… Bless her for putting herself out there… <3