4 years - Nan passed

It is hard to describe how exciting it was to lay eyes on her for the first time.  Of course my mind just relayed the message to my roaring emotions, "out of your league" and I moved on.  We were at Pinecrest Camp located just off Highway 50 near Lake Tahoe.  She to be a girls counselor, I to be Boys Director thanks to Uncle Charlie Edwards, youth director for the Northern California Conference of SDAs.  We were there to operate a summer camp program for weeks of fun for boy and girls from all over California.  Long hours, great food, constant energy.

Soon we made the discovery that we could both sing, had done lots of solo work, she in Texas and California and so on Sabbath afternoons when little campers were napping staff would gather round the piano and sing, our voices worked well together and her stunning blue eyes, waist length blond hair, tiny frame, 105 lbs and endless energy began to work its magic.

Thanks to a kind uncle she had braces which needed constant adjusting at the orthodonist who was located in Lodi.  Being of a kind ilk I offered to drive her there and back and so began some time together without 10 little curious campers watching our every move.  I began to look forward to trips to Lodi.  Before long we were falling love and found every chance to exchange kisses, frequent visits to Uncle Clarlie's office and admonitions about PDA put a crimp in our new love but only drove it underground.

In the fall we were both back at PUC and totally in love,  on a mountainside with music from Brigadoon playing I proposed and she accepted, pause for tears, and we began to make plans for a wedding the day after graduation. It was a magic year, every morning she drove me down the back of Howel Mountain to Pope Valley where I picked up a little school bus and collected high school brats, then drove over the hill with its narrow and twisty roads to Saint Helena High School where I deposited the little winners, then back to park the bus at the SDA church and hitch a ride up the hill to classes.  Then in the afternoon the reverse, hitch down the hill to the bus, oh yes there were very interesting rides, fast, slow, hippies, drug dealers, I just needed a ride.  Then pick up the bus, collect the kids and drive back to Pope Valley where I dumped the kids.  Then there nan would be, back with our car for the ride back to campus.  That was our senior year with all the choir trips, dates, classes, bills and planning.  It was a tough time but a magic time.  This incredibly desirable and beautiful woman was actually going to marry me.  A lot of pinching happened, can this really be happening?

The day after I graduated we were married in Lodi.  We had many friends and they all ended up in the wedding party!  What a hoot, the flowers were borrowed from a wedding that had been held the day before, her dress had seen several weddings in Texas, my shoes had help me written on the bottoms thats to my "friends" and an old girl friends grandparents came to me before the wedding offering me money if I would just leave and not go through with it.  Another very kind lady handed me money, a lot of money for those days and the provided a very nice honeymoon.

And so our lives began together.  Nan proved to be not only beautiful but also very bright, driven, loyal, organized, focused, loving and when Nikki and Jason arrived a dedicated mother, not so much with words but her actions made birthdays, christmas and other events huge deals, all out and they grew every year.

Was Nan perfect?  Easy to live with? no NO  N  O.   But she was everything a guy could really dream of.  She just happened to end up with a mind of her own and crossing her was done with great peril to ones future.  What a lady and when the GIST hit her strong will became her best weapon.  No matter what happened she fought, she held it together and she made the best of everything.  She had more things removed, endured more pain and surgery than anyone I know yet I only remember her courage and her love for nurses, some doctors and for her family and friends.

Miss her, well of course, when you have lived with someone like this, well you don't forget, you just smile and mouth the words, thank you Lord for 36 incredible years.

Tim