Unfinished Pearls

For those of you who may not know, Maggie's real name is Margaret. When I was pregnant with her, Scott and I thought it would be fitting to give her a very classy name. My mom's best friend was Margaret. I grew up with her daughter and had actually grown very close to her, and since her children never had any plans to have children of their own, we thought we would name our daughter "Margaret", after mom's best friend. I remember one day Margaret telling me that it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her - and I was glad that we did it.

When Maggie was born, Margaret bought her a necklace and started the strand of pearls. Basically, every year, so many pearls would be added to the necklace so that when Maggie got married, she'd have a string of pearls (something old) to wear. Here's where I wanted to insert the photo but my camera is at home and I'm a bit frazzled right now.

Saturday we got a phone call. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon and I was vacuuming the living room floor. Scott was downstairs playing with the girls and I was getting the house cleaned up so we could meet his parents later. My brother called Scott's line and he brought me the phone. I figured he wanted to go out to eat or something, but when I took the phone, he had different news. Margaret died. Just like that. She was gone. Nothing expected, etc. He had my mom in the car and they were headed to the hospital to say their goodbyes. Mom wasn't doing well. She had just lost a good friend two months ago, but this was Margaret. They talked every day and got together often on the weekends to go shopping and eat dinner. This was different. This was the woman I named my daugther after. It was unexpected - she was only 63.

When I got to the hospital, I stood with my mom at Margaret's side. I prayed that God made her transition easy. I promised her I'd finish the pearls.

The service is sometime this week. I guess I'll find out today since they had to wait to make the arrangements due to the holiday. Ironically, I believe Easter was one of Margaret's favorite holidays. She had just brought Maggie a basket with a bunny on Friday. I don't think the bunny has left Maggie's side since.

I guess there is no moral to my story. I just wanted to get it out - type it out, put it in writing to make it more real. Right now, it doesn't seem real. I keep waiting for her to call me about Mom or send a little card over, etc. I also keep waiting for life to get just a bit easier.