Place Memories of Margret

Margret first lived in a RecV, a converted bread truck. Then she lived in a travel trailer with her parents, and her sisters as they arrived. Her dad left while she lived there.

The trailer was too small, so she moved with her mom and sisters to a second floor apartment. She and her sisters thought it was enormous. For the first few weeks, she and her sisters would follow her mom from room to room, not sure they wanted to let her get that far away. (or out of sight?) She went to school, made friends, and did normal kid things while she lived there. She went often to a nearby state park with her family, followed the paths, watched animals (Look! A chipmunk!), learned to identify some common plants and skipped stones in the creek.

She and her sisters spent a year with her dad in Arizona, over two thousand miles away. She went to school, made friends, went to the rim of the Grand Canyon. She participated in Special Olympics and brought home three medals. Cross country skiing is just not something I would have thought of, back here in Pennsylvania, but she enjoyed it, and was good at it.

She came back to a two story house with attic bedrooms for her two younger sisters. She started horseback riding lessons while she lived there, and started aquacize lessons with her mom. She hung out with her sisters and the girls from across the street. She walked places.

She moved with us to another two story house with finished attic. She went to the Prom, had a job, took ceramic painting classes and made lovely stuff, was diagnosed with depression, stopped taking riding lessons, diagnosed with Eisenmenger's, lost the job, started volunteering, and started to use supplemental oxygen while she lived there. Her sisters went off to college and moved away. She learned to knit, got a knitting machine, and made scarves for everyone in the family one Christmas.

She moved to a one story house with her mom and mom's husband. Although her mom hates moving she liked the one story house. Margret liked the one story house better than the two story house, too. For one thing, it had whole house air conditioning, and that helped keep her comfortable. Her bedroom was on the first floor so she didn't have to do a flight of stairs when she was weary. Even though a few stairs go down from the main part of the house to the TV room, it wasn't the effort it was for her to go up and down stairs in the two story. She volunteered, saw her doctor regularly, went on a couple road trips to see her little sister and her family, went to a live concert in New York City, no, make that THREE concerts. She made latchhook squares from kits, and planned to which sister, niece or nephew she would give them.

Her last room, for a tad longer than two weeks, was in a hospital, with doctors, nurses, IV pumps, cards, visitors, phone calls, family, a ventilator mask, complete with ventilator, monitors and alarms, misery, and in the end, peace.

Margret is a believer, so she has moved to Heaven. She often told me she was an angel. I didn't want her to say that, because I know angels can't stay here very long.