Joy

We all remember where we were on September 11, 2001.  In addition to trying to take in what was happening on our East Coast, I was at a visitation for my friend, Pam.

 

 

You know how you have friends who you can do the silliest things with?  Well Pam was one of those. I first met her in 1983.  Our oldest kids were the same age and our youngest only a few years apart. We met when I joined a women's group when I first moved to Clear Lake. 

 

 

I remember canasta parties at her house.  Our canasta nights were the best.  Playing cards was just a reason to get together.  Each canasta night we dressed uniquely  (the sillier the better), but it was all just about spending time with good friends.  
 

 

In girl speak it was just plain silliness. 

 

 

Pam's parents had passed away when she was younger and she had no siblings, so friends were like family to her.
 

 

I had known Pam for about 15 years when one day in the late 1990s,  while walking through the hospital on my break at work, I saw her go by in a wheelchair.  A quick phone call to our friend, Linda, and I found out she had fainted while at work. 


The ensuing workup revealed she had a brain tumor.

 

 

Within a short period of time she was in the operating room and Linda and I sat and waited with her family.  The news from the neurosurgeon was not what we had hoped to hear - it was an aggressive tumor and would need treatment. Her recovery from surgery was difficult and before long she was in Rochester.  At first she was kept under sedation to allow the early stages of healing to begin with as much ease as possible.   Linda and I went up to Rochester to see her and visit her family. 

 

 

Once she came home we made meals for them, visited, and those who were able helped her get to doctor appointments.  Her husband was a truck driver and sometimes gone for periods of time - and of course it was his insurance they so badly needed at this time, so it was friends who kept things going on the home front while he was away.

 

 

Pam had treatments, got sick, lost her appetite and her hair, but NEVER complained or asked "why me?"  She was the one picking US up.  It just amazed me how thankful she always was for everything.  She found joy in the little things.  She had a grace that I could only hope to have in her situation. 

 

 

She was in and out of the hospital numerous times over those few years.  In 2000, Linda, Pam, and I each had a son or daughter graduating from high school.  Pam was allowed to leave the hospital long enough to attend the graduation ceremony, with oxygen and medical equipment in tow. 

Then in the summer of 2001 she fractured her ankle.  Because of her husband's job and his need to continue to work for insurance purposes, she had to go to the nursing home to rest and allow it to heal. It was hard to see her in that setting.  Linda and I would go visit and take her Baskin Robbins ice cream - anything chocolate.  Pam LOVED chocolate.  She was known to eat Hershey's Syrup right from the squeeze bottle in a desperate moment! 

While it was an unusual setting for a girls night, we treated it like any other get together and talked about the usual friend stuff:  family and kids, and spent lots of time giggling.

 

 

Pam declined quickly after that.  I remember the last visit Linda and I went together to see Pam in the nursing home.  It was the last true girl time we had with her.  There was talk about bringing in Hospice soon, but even then, Pam found reasons to find the joy in things. 

 

A few days later, on Saturday, September 8, 2001, I stopped to see her again and she was not responsive.  A Hospice nurse had been called and was checking in periodically.   I sat and talked with her and told her what was going on with family and friends.  That one-sided conversation was hard, I missed hearing Pam laugh,  but I hoped she could hear me. 

 

 

That evening I received a phone call that she had passed away. 


She was 48.   


Her family asked that we come to the nursing home to see her once more and be there with them. 

 

 

So on September 11, while trying to grasp why the events in New York were happening, I was at Pam's visitation, trying to understand "why" on a much different level.

 

 

 What made Pam so amazing was that she loved everything, lived each day to the fullest, found joy in life, laughed, and smiled.

 

 

She never stopped laughing and smiling.

 

 

None of us knows the future.  I can only pray that I would have the same grace that Pam did with whatever comes my way. 


I thought "Joy" was the perfect title for this blog as Pam found joy in life even in the most difficult times.


But joy not only filled Pam's life and the lives of those she met....


Joy was also her middle name.



So appropriate.