Denise Bush, a Fort Worth woman seeking solace through crocheting, has crafted over 500 scarves for fellow military moms, forging a supportive community.

FORT WORTH, Texas — Yes, Denise Bush is a homebody. Most days, she’s sitting in an easy chair at her Fort Worth home, crochet hooks in hand, while her pet pug snores on a well-worn leather armrest.

But those crochet hooks are doing more than just making colorful scarves. If you ask the recipients of her work, they will tell you each loop helps connect a community of moms all worried about the same thing.

“I was devastated. I mean, unable to function almost,” Denise Bush admitted of the day her son, her youngest, joined the U.S. Navy. “All I did was cry and be scared. I was a nervous wreck.”

“It was terrible,” she said of not getting word for days and weeks at a time where her son had been deployed, “Having an empty nest and worrying about him.”

For a while, the best therapy she could find was her two constant companions: a dog named Cutie Pie and another, a pug named Mr. Wednesday.

“He’s a therapy dog,” she said of Mr. Wednesday. “That’s what he thinks he is. And he watches and makes sure I do what I’m supposed to.”

What she believes she’s supposed to do is crochet.

“I crochet every day,” she said. “It’s helped me get out of my head all the time. It’s helped me not worry as much. I tell you what, it is doing its keeping me sane.”


And it dawned on her one day that perhaps there were other moms who are worried sick just like she is, and maybe in need of a stitch of sanity, too.

“I feel like God said, hey, I want you to make scarves for all the Navy moms who want one.”

She found a Facebook group for military moms and offered to crochet personalized scarves for free. She only asks the recipients to pay postage for the scarves crocheted with the name of whichever branch of the military the service members are in.

“This is your mission. You do this for them,” Denise Bush said of her sudden calling. “Because they all feel exactly like you do, whether you know it or not.”

And that was about 500 scarves ago.

Three of those recipients gladly jumped on a Zoom call to show the scarves Denise made for them and to praise her work and her message.

“I wear it every day to work,” Janice Henry said from her home in Wasilla, Alaska.

“When I put this on, it just reminds me that they’re gonna be OK,” Shelly Petty said from her home in Saratoga Springs, Utah.

“To be able to walk around my hometown and have this with me, it’s like taking my babies with me everywhere I go,” said Dori Matthews in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“A gentle reminder of my child every single day, that he’s with me,” Janice Henry said of her son. “He’s with me. That’s what I like about it. I feel like he’s with me.”

“They’re very simple stitches,” Denise Bush said. “But somehow I think it’s magic when it gets to the mom, and the mom puts it on, it looks beautiful to me too. And the moms are so happy.”

But there is more to Denise’s story, and the happiness she is desperately seeking, too. She admits she is an introvert for a reason.

“Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia,” she said of her diagnosis, and one of her reasons for not venturing far from home. 

It is a treatable form of the disease. But 30 years ago, her mom received the exact same diagnosis. She says the diagnosis, with more limited treatment options at that time, contributed to her mom’s despondency and depression. 

Nancy Callaway eventually took her own life.

“And there wasn’t a lot to be done,” Denise said of her mom’s demise. “You just got sick and passed 30 years ago.”

Which was when I noticed…her mom was in the room with us.

“Yep. She’s always here,” Denise said while pointing to the urn with her mom’s ashes, Nancy Calloway’s name on the side, placed at the bottom of the television cabinet in her crocheting room.

“She would like that I was doing these,” Denise said of her mom. “She would tell me how beautiful they are and how proud she is of me.”

That pride, and the sanity Denise is seeking, is giving her something to live for with every stitch.

“There is a healing, healing to the crocheting for sure,” she said. “It makes me feel connected to the military moms. And I feel connected because I know they miss their kids too.”


“Denise, I adore you,” Shelly Petty said, wanting to send her thanks and best wishes from Utah.

“Miss Denise, you are a blessing,” added Janice Henry from Alaska.

“Just like what she’s weaving here, she’s connecting us,” added Dori Matthews in Tulsa.

“We’re a whole village. We support each other,” Shelly Petty added. “And wearing this just reminds me every day that no matter how hard my day is, there are so many other moms going through the same thing.”

“I feel so blessed that they like them,” Denise said. “It’s more of a blessing to me than it is to them.”

So in that corner of a small house in Fort Worth, with a sometimes snoring pug keeping guard, Denise Bush says she will keep crocheting and connecting a family of military moms while also mending the frayed pieces of her own life.

Denise Bush says if other military moms are interested in finding out more about her work, they can find it at her Scarf Lady for Navy Moms and More Facebook page.