We are in Cachuma Lake Recreation Area as workkampers. It is above Santa Barbara, California
Well we will see if this page 2 of this blog will work and make some happy.
This is my memorial to my niece Heidi. I need to get it out so if you would rather not read it skip to the next one.
After I left Whidbey in a hurry I went to Prescott, Wisconsin. I commuted back and forth from Shakopee for a few days and then stayed in Wisconsin. I was there to spend the last days and care for a niece that I had helped take care of when she was little. We were friends not just relatives. She was like a sister and a daughter to me. We were similar in a lot of ways. I admired her to no end and even though we were parted with distance many years we kept in touch and when we saw each other it was if no time had passed. I loved that girl as if she were my own. I have great love and affection for all my nieces and nephews, they are all so special, and each in their own way is endearing to me.
But Heidi and I had something special that even death has not taken away. I was there the last weeks and did what I could to keep her comfortable, to talk and share, and to relieve others. She has two of the most fantastic kids that are also special to me. I just had a connection with that family that I can't explain. I bathed her as a child and I gave her the last bath she had on this earth. I still cry when I think of her. I still can't fathom she is not on this earth to spread the joy she did. She was sick for the many years and the last 6 were especially hard. But the last few weeks that I spent with her were the biggest gift she could have ever given me. When I got there she didn't want me as she didn't think she was that far along, but by the next morning she had already started to realize that the time was near. I told her I was there to give a break to Cassie and a leaning post for Cassie (her daughter) because Cassie was about or was ready to breakdown. She was overwhelmed. So I was there to give her comfort to and to hold these two children of hers for her. She kept up her love and expressions of love to the end. She kept up her humor to the end. The days were wonderful, some times the moments were hard but many were such a joy. I got to know the love of her life Les and learned to appreciate him as she did. He is an amazing man and he gave her 10 of the happiest years in her life. Her smile those years changed from forced to a glow from inside. It was so great to see her truly happy. He held her every evening and thru the night, even though we all floated in and out of the room. He was her rock. He hand made her urn and had her son paint it. It is so beautiful. Between the grain of the wood and the paintings it depicted her favorite place in the world in Mexico. She was free every time she was there, she made strong friends there and she and Les had there time there each and every year. She had a feeding tube for 6 years and she would lug everything she needed down there just so she could spend a few weeks there.
She was an amazing person, always trying to make the world love her and she really never needed to do anything. We loved her for what she was. She was caring and you always knew she loved you. Somehow she radiated love to others, even though during the dark times it was hard. She pushed people away because she never wanted to be a burden. She was talented and she could do any craft or hobby with no instruction, just do it and do it perfectly. She never failed at anything she tried. She started with a bakery in her last years of high school and got up early to work there. She learned to make cakes and cupcakes and they were unbelievable. I have never seen anything on the food channel, even by Duff, that could compare to what she did. You asked her and she made it. She made graduation, wedding, and any special occasion cakes that were desired. Football cakes, an unbelievable peacock cake, any kind of cake. Her grandchildren only know these elaborate cakes and I am sure the first holiday that comes along will be disappointing for them without some special grandiose cake from Grandma. Maybe some day her daughter will have enough time to also learn this craft.
She was an incredible worker and always put her heart into being the best, at whatever it was. She never did just her job, she always excelled way past that so that jobs couldn't imagine being without her.
She spent her life trying to be the best, to be good enough, to be worthy. In her last days I asked her if she really knew how many people loved her and how much and that it had nothing to do with what she did but who she was. She replied she wasn't worthy, The only person who made her feel GOOD enough was Les, none of could fill the gap that he filled for her. She was in her 50's but she had at least 10 years of feeling good. I would hope to think when she was little she didn't have those goals and just accepted our love.
We had so much fun together, she and her brothers, we played and I played pranks on them and read to them and watched tv with them and took them places and they would always call me mom to make it hard for me to attract a man at the place we were and then they would laugh and laugh. There are too many memories floating thru my head of my times with her. The years that she and the kids would spend their vacations with us at the farm.
It was hard for her mother at the end and she couldn't do the things I could do. She had suffered for a long time with her and never new when this day would come. She lived in a stage of grieving, more so than anyone else. I knew this day would come and when I would be reminded of it I would cry and Leroy was there to console me as he loved her as much as I. I lived in a state of when not if as all who were really close did, for years. Just think what it must have been like for her, and Les too.
When I left the kids and Les gave me a locket, an antique locket, with her picture in it as a small girl and as an adult at the end. It is an endearing thing to me and I wear it and keep her close to my heart.
Les made small wooden keychains and some of her ashes were put in there for many of us. I was blown away the day he gave me one and again broke down in tears. She travels the roads with me and will never be far, though I wouldn't need anything tangible to make me remember my dear sweet Heidi
I know this is long and probably no one will read it but as the tears flow into the keyboard I enter these words some place, and try to get it all out. I am sure I will remember more as time goes by but I needed to do this at the opening of the blog.
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