Deep in a coma, Mayanne Downs teetered on the brink of death in an Orlando hospital.

Eighty-five miles away in Tampa, her colleagues on The Florida Bar Board of Governors gathered for dinner with their spouses.

Quietly pulling out a bundle of blue yarn, Robyn Sasso, wife of governor Andy Sasso of Clearwater, explained she was making a prayer shawl for her friend, Mayanne. Passing knitting needles to those at the dinner table, she gave quick instructions on how to take some stitches while praying for their colleague’s recovery.

When Downs was finally released from Florida Hospital on April 1, 2007, after 17 days in the Intensive Care Unit, she drew that shawl around her shoulders and wouldn’t take it off, so comforted by its warmth.


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