10 Years

10 years

It’s hard to believe that it has been 10 years on February 26, 1999 that my mother passed away. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was living in Bar Harbor in our company apartments with my friend Ann and working as the office manager. The phone rang in the middle of the night, and I did not answer it, thinking it was a drunken friend at the bar around the corner wanting to crash at my apartment for the night. The next morning there were two messages from my grandfather to call him. Ann was already awake making coffee when I called him back. He told me my mother had died and I ran into the bathroom to hear him better, as I did not believe I had heard him correctly. I did, though. I ran upstairs to find a white shirt and black pants, packed a small bag and got ready to drive. Ann stuffed a box of crackers in my bag. I stopped by the Maineway to get some coffee for the long drive home and I remember the clerk asking me if I wanted the free newspaper that came with my large coffee-apparently that was the promotion of the day. I just looked at him blankly and left. Five and a half hours later I was at my grandparents’ home.

She was supposed to play cards at 6pm, after work, with some ladies in her apartment building. She never showed up for cards and the ladies thought that was odd, especially since they could see her car parked from where they were sitting in the downstairs common area—this is where they gathered to play. When the police found her she was on the ground on a snowbank next to her car, with the door open. Apparently she had pulled into the complex, probably a few minutes after 6pm, and parked in her spot, opened her door to get out, and had a heart attack. Although the ladies could clearly see her car, her driver’s side was facing away from the building so they never saw her fall to the ground upon getting out. My family and I could not help but wonder…her friends could see her car from where they waited—if just one of them had seen her pull in and then, not get out, someone might have checked the car, and , would they have found her in time to help? We wondered….if just one person had walked by and seen her fall out of the car, could someone have done CPR or called for help and might she have been ok? There are so many “what ifs” in situations like these.

So much has happened in the last ten years, so many milestones. A week after my mother died I moved into my very first apartment, by myself. I had been planning to move on March 1st, but with my mother’s sudden death and being out of town a week I had just imagined I would move later in the month. When I came back to the island the first week in March I found that my friends, coworkers and “Maine” family had packed all my things and moved me into my new upstairs apartment. Some good friends were waiting for me, with plants and flowers and food, in my old, empty apartment. I still laugh thinking about the fact that the president of the company I worked for carried my dresser drawers, undergarments and all, up those stairs to my new apartment.

Two and a half months after that, I met my Kyle. We fell in love that summer and by fall we shared my apartment. A few years later, we bought our first house. That fall, we got married. By our first anniversary I was pregnant and we had a baby the next spring.
Then, we moved to SC. Bought another house. Had another baby. We’re done with babies, but probably not with houses, I imagine.

All these things in 10 years, all the most important and major events in my life seem to have happened so quickly in this short time since she has been gone. I often think about how happy she would have been to see me buy a house--a dream she never realized-- to live in Maine—another of her dreams, and to have 2 daughters, whom she would have spoiled and loved and called silly, made-up names. She would have been so pleased. I also think about how dismayed she would have been to see me leave Maine and move, gulp, to the South. Her idea of Maine was pure bliss.

So, here we are 10 years later. I try hard to remember some of the lessons she taught me, whether she meant to or not:

Education and a love of learning is the most important thing in life-- it can set you free from your circumstances, show you a way out, give you the key to success.

Singing (and laughing) with your kids (especially Christmas Carols, any time of the year) is probably a close second

I know there are more, but I can’t think of them right now. I’ve got to go put a chicken in the oven and brush up on my Jingle Bells before I go pick up the girls.

Enjoy the pictures, the first is my mother in elementary school and the second is one of us at Acadia National Park. Note: this was probably the last time my abs looked that good.