Another Loss…

 Losing those we love is always hard. We all expect our parents to die someday. If we are married, we assume one or the other of us will go first. And if we are blessed to live long enough, we will begin to lose close friends. However, what we do not expect is for young people to die suddenly.

I am currently helping to facilitate a GriefShare group , and several of the people in that group have lost children. I know I will never understand just how they feel, but I can’t imagine anything more wrenching.

About an hour after I returned home last Thursday, while scrolling through Facebook, a photo of a dear young lady we loved appeared. When I read the caption, I began to sob. Larry was sitting next to me and asked what was wrong. I was crying so hard I could hardly answer him. I managed to get out, “Brooke died.”

His answer was to be expected: “Huh?”

“Brooke died.”

This time, what I’d said finally registered, and I watched the pain on his face.

I cried for several hours…

~~~

Brooke’s mother, Arleen, was one of our daughter Kim’s best friends in high school. She spent hours with us, and Kim spent time at her house. As with many of Kim’s friends, we stayed in touch with Arleen through marriages, divorces and kids, mostly through email and then later through Facebook.

She finally met Jim, and her life became more stable. They had a daughter, Brooke.

Kim worked at Disneyland for several years, and Arleen and Brooke had passes. When she could, Kim met them there, and they enjoyed the park together.

I remember her telling us that Brooke’s favorite ride was The Haunted Mansion Holiday. Even though she was little, Brooke was never afraid. She loved Jack Skellington.

A few years ago, Arleen called us. She had a favor to ask. Brooke was enrolled in IPoly High School, located on the campus of Cal Poly, Pomona. Only the top students qualified, and Brooke was a terrific student. This program combined the usual high school curriculum along with college-level classes and self-directed learning.

Arleen explained that for her senior project, Brooke had to select a career she might be interested in pursuing and then find a mentor to work with her through the school year. The commitment was for fifty in-person hours plus emails and phone calls throughout the year. Arleen knew we were authors and that I was editing. Brooke decided she wanted to find out about this career, and Arleen asked if we would be willing to work with her. We did not hesitate to answer, “Yes!”

So, during the next eight months, her folks drove her down to our home in Dana Point from their home in San Gabriel Valley every few weeks so we could spend two or three hours with her while they went to the beach. (Fortunately, they both love the beach!)

Arleen, Brooke and Jim

We started with the basics: story structure, character development, world building, etc. We have an extensive collection of books on writing, and every time Brooke came, she went home with two or three. The next time, our visit started with a discussion of what she had learned from the books.

In October, I suggested she take part in NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. Participants commit to writing every day, completing a book within the month. I told her if she finished, we could edit it together and publish it. She was excited at the prospect.

Larry is a plotter, so he and Brooke discussed creating an outline ahead of time so she would know what her story was about and where it was going. (I, on the other hand, am a “pantser.” I write by the seat of my pants and let the story evolve through my characters.)

She started out enthusiastically, but about halfway through, she lost interest. She completed the book, but she said when she finished, she didn’t like it and didn’t want to publish it. We agreed the experience was still a good exercise.

I gave her a couple of chapters of a book I had edited and asked her to take a shot at it for practice. She brought it back, and we compared her notes with mine. She did a great job with it.

Larry completed his sci-fi book, The McGregor Chronicles: Book 3 - Alien Invasion, while we were working with Brooke and invited her to be a beta reader. She gave him several suggestions, which he included. And she is mentioned in the Acknowledgements. Her review is quoted in the Readers’ Comments section of the book.

Periodically, we had to log into her school portal to record the number of hours we’d spent and answer a few questions about what we had done. She did the same.

During one of our last sessions, she sat with me as I uploaded a manuscript I had edited and formatted for an older gentleman. I’d asked if I could call him during the process so I could explain what I was doing, and I asked his permission for Brooke to look on in real time so she could see the actual steps. As a former teacher, he was delighted to have her. She watched and asked questions of me and the author. It felt like it was the most valuable time we spent with her.

She had to produce a final project and chose to do an interactive PowerPoint for her class about what she had learned. She sent it to us ahead of her presentation, and we were impressed with her work. So was her teacher. I think she got an A+ grade on it.

Of course, we attended her graduation and cheered loudly along with her large family when she walked across the stage.

High School Graduation

She decided to take a gap year before starting college. During that year, the family moved from California to Florida.

She did return to college, where she graduated with honors and immediately started on her Masters degree. We expected to hear great things from her.

She was one class short of completing her degree when her mother found her in her bed last Thursday morning…

~~~

We are still processing the news, but we are also very grateful to have had Brooke in our lives. We came to love her very much. We have no grandchildren, but Brooke became like a grandchild.

Thank you, Brooke, for the sunshine and joy you gave to this world.

 

Thanks to her sister, Amber, and her godmother, Chris, for the photos.

This is a link to her obituary. https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/boca-raton-fl/brooke-bailey-12379068

My Maternal Cousins

 

Karen, David, Kathy, Eileen, Lorna, Ron

My maternal cousins and I grew up together. We all lived fairly close, so we saw a lot of each other. Aunt Muriel and Uncle Gordon (David and Eileen’s parents) lived in El Sereno. Aunt Evie and Uncle Frank (Karen and Kathy’s folks) lived in Monterey Park. We lived in Alhambra. We were within five miles of each other.

We spent all of the major holidays together. Mom hosted Easter, Aunt Muriel had Thanksgiving, Grandma had Christmas, and Aunt Evie and Uncle Frank had New Year’s Eve. Known as “Hogmanay” in Scotland, New Year’s Eve was a very big celebration. (My grandparents were both born and raised in that country.)

David was the oldest. I was next and fourteen months younger. Three years later, all the “littles” were born. My brother, Ron came along in May, Eileen arrived in August, and the twins were born in December.

Aunt Evie and Uncle Frank put in a swimming pool, and we spent a great deal of time during the summer at their house. Lots of happy memories were made there!

We all knew each other’s neighbors because we played with them. Many years later, a couple came to our church. I recognized her as the little girl who had lived across the street from my cousins, Eileen and David. They had a large family, and we had played at their house often.

I babysat for my aunt’s neighbors and knew them and their kids very well. When I was in my twenties, I went to work for an income tax preparer. I ended up working for my aunt Evie’s best friend. I had taken care of her kids. She and I also became good friends over the next few years.

When I was in my early teens, Aunt Evie and Uncle Frank moved north to San Mateo in the Bay Area for work. The first Thanksgiving holiday after they moved, Eileen and I took the train to visit them. She enjoyed playing with the twins, and I got to spend time with Aunt Evie.

We still got together fairly often. In high school, I dated one of David’s friends, and he dated some of mine. We practiced dancing together to all the latest music. He embarrassed me by screening my boyfriends!

After Aunt Evie and Uncle Frank moved away, Aunt Muriel and Uncle Gordon hosted the Hogmanay party as well as Thanksgiving. Aunt Evie and Uncle Frank sometimes came down for the holidays.

Eventually, I married, and David went into the Air Force. Then he moved back to the East Coast where he married. We all loved his wife. They later moved back to California where we got together with them once in a while.

Life moved on, and we all became busy with our own families. Larry and I visited Aunt Evie and Uncle Frank a couple of times a year. We saw Karen and Kathy while we were there.

The last time we were all together was at our 50^th wedding anniversary party in 2015.

Karen, Kathy, Lorna, Ron, Eileen, David

Ron passed away five years later.

This past weekend we celebrated the life of Aunt Evie, who died at 101 years old. She’d had a long and happy life, so we all wanted to be there to celebrate her. The remaining cousins all came.

Kathy, David, Lorna, Eileen, Karen

I still love my cousins and am grateful for all the wonderful memories we share.