Jolyn's Birthday

Today would have been Jolyn's 49th birthday. Jolyn, Pati (her sister) and I started a tradition of getting together somewhere between September 10th and October 5th (Pati's birthday) to spend the day together and go "fall shopping" and have lunch together. It was truly one of the highlights of my year and I looked forward to it immensely. After Jonie died, I knew that this year was going to be difficult to say the least. Pati and I decided on the day she died, that this year we would get together ON Jolyn's actual birthday.

My day started out with tears because when I pulled up Pati's facebook account, the picture she had on it was one of the 3 of us from last years day together...so, I drive to Bonney Lake and when I tell Pati about how my morning started, she handed me something-it was a 5 x 7 of the SAME picture! Uff dah, more tears and we haven't even left the house yet!

We started out at This-n-That in Enumclaw, and actually did pretty good. A few tears but not bad. The gal that worked there knew Jolyn and was very kind in her words to us. Then we headed to Sumner to Folk Art Gatherings where Jolyn worked...that, was HARD. I had a hard time just getting in the door, but I did. We walked around and collected a few things-I had put a cloth pumkin on the counter and Pati walked up and said"you could make that". WHAT???!! At the same time we both looked at each other and started laughing-she coudn't figure out where that came from and neither could I and then it dawned on BOTH of us...it was JOLYN!! Seriously, those were the exact words that Jolyn would always say to me when we shopped- Pati had NEVER said that to me before. How crazy was that?

LuAnn, the owner of the store, was talking and told us she needed "to come clean" about something. Turns out that Jonie had left her reading glasses at the store and LuAnn wanted to keep them there as she found herself using them when she'd forget hers. We told her to please keep them so that there would always be a little part of Jolyn there when we came to shop. We both tried them on , and put them back down and had a nice little cry. She did give me the chain that Jonie used to keep them around her neck-I'm now using it for my glasses.

We went to lunch and had great conversation and then went to Jolyn and Gary's house to see Gary. I'd not been there since her death and it was very difficult for me. I was thankful for all the boxes of kleenex that were around! Gary is doing amazingly well-it was just good to see him. Katie(daughter in law) and Noah ( grandson) were there too. We all shared some tears and some laughs together and it was a wonderful way to end the day. We missed Jolyn so much today, but she would've loved how we spent the day. We knew that she was having a very special birthday party with her Mom in heaven today...and they were both eating all the chocolate they could find! Happy Birthday Jolyn...I love you so much.