The activity of knitting adds a note of normality to the patient’s condition. Daily routines take on increased importance. The red knitted object placed near the woman’s heart suggests hers is a labour of love. Even as she undergoes treatment for herself, she continues to think of others and wants to do things for them.

The thread descending from the mitten echoes the line from the IV solution, which Robert often used as a symbolic lifeline—this may be an allusion to the myth of the thread of life. On her blog “Myth & Moor,” author and artist Terri Windling writes: “A thread now most often means a line of conversation via e-mail or other electronic means, but thread must have been an even more compelling metaphor when most people witnessed or did the women’s work that is spinning … In Greek mythology, each human life is a thread that the three Moirae, or Fates, spin, measure, and cut.“