Annie Died Too Young

Annie was in her fifties, fifty four when she died. We cremated her as was her wish and I got a bottle of her ashes from Columbus, Ohio where she lived at the last. I took that bottle to Newport, Oregon, where in 1985, after two years of living together in Mountain View, Ca and then in Portland, Or, actually most of three, we were married by my mother, a minister.

I have posted two photos. The first shows Ann standing upper left. This was in better times. Next to her standing is my Aunty Nan (never Nancy), who considered Ann among her best friends. The last move Nan made was to Portland to be near us, especially near Ann. At the far right you will see Fran Springhetti. Fran moved to Newport not too long after we did in 1975. She got work in the Children Services office there alongside Annie and later became supervisor there for a short while. During this time Fran became Ann's best friend, at least in the Social Work business. Later Fran retired from that work and among other things remodeled our house when we bought one and opened a coffee retail business called Coffee Concerto.

Seated is my mother. She too moved to Portland to retire from her ministry. She kept active in ministerial duties, going on trips to offer seminars and trainings and was given the title of chaplain to the local Unity School Ministers to maintain her IRS business exemptions and her manse write offs. I live in her house now.

All four of these women are gone now. Fran and Nan both died of cancer. My mother had a stroke and died in three days, in January of 2001. In October of 2001 Ann died of kidney failure as the autopsy put it. She was found dead a few days later in her own apartment. Nan lived a few more years, but all died fairly young except my mother who was most of the way to eighty when she died.

The second photo is of me. I took my then current lover and my oldest friend (he stood for me when Ann and I married and later I stood for him when he married) and went to the main beach in Newport as I wrote before. Isabel was there too. She was Carroll's mate, and they were together longer than Ann and I were, but they married far later in their lives together. That is of course, Annie's ashes leaving the bottle. She is also placed in the back of the house we bought together, out in front of this one, up at Willamette National Cemetery where I go sometimes to visit her and her uncle and aunt also buried there. I also have kept a small portion of her and she sits in her bottle where these pictures are also on display, but in a room only I go into. This house is only mine, I have almost no visitors here. That room is even more private.

Annie Died Too Young

With my friends I took
as you gave me your ashes
to Newport, the beach
we would walk early
in our years together, when
we had no money
nor did we know what

would come. I dug a tideline
hole for you, there placed
your dream as it poured
from the long green glass a thin
ashy stream as we
who knew you witnessed
the tide come for you and take
away from us all

old false empty hope.

August 3, 2009 12:56 PM