In Memorium

Gerry Potter and my Mom

Gerry Potter died on Mother's Day.  This is what I wrote and read at her Memorial Service on Saturday, May 23.  I doubt anyone reading this blog would know Gerry, but one of my blog lookers wanted to see what I wrote and I wanted to give Gerry this tribute.

The Potters, Gerry and Jay, were all mixed up with my childhood.  Jaydee and Pam and Randy were closer than cousins, Gerry and Jay were better than an Aunt and Uncle.  When I think of that Golden Time, when my brothers and I were small, I hear Gerry and my Mom (Chickie Eddy) talking and laughing, Gerry’s low chuckle, my Mom’s high trill and Jay and my Dad (Stan Eddy) counting: 15 two, 15 four, 15 six and a pair is eight, as they tried to skunk each other at Cribbage.   I think of the camping trips to the Hamma Hamma, the Skokomish, the Satsup Rivers and other Olympic Mountain destinations, the campfires we sat around, the pungent odor of wet socks drying, because 75 % of those camping trips were rained on.  I remember Mom and Gerry sitting at the picnic table gabbing, waiting for their fishing husbands to return to camp so we could all eat dinner.  

I remember the Madrona Point house, my brother, Dan, water skiing with the Potter’s and their neighbors, the Neshems.  I remember the smell of the tuna fish with onions that Gerry made, and the cookies always baking.  I remember my brother, Dan, and I sharing Gerry and Jay’s big bed  while our folks played cards in the kitchen.

Gerry and my Mom did something I’ve never known two other women to do, ever.  They got together every week to iron.  Those were the days of no Permanent Press;  everything had to be ironed.  They brought their boards, their irons and their laundry baskets full of clothes to Gerry’s house one week, Mom’s house the next, and they ironed and laughed and told stories and gossiped and before they knew it, the ironing was done.  It was genius.

I will always credit Gerry with influencing me in terms of color, stylishness and confidence.  My Mom is no slouch in those categories either, and maybe that’s one of the many reasons they were close for so many years.  I loved Gerry’s red hair and freckles, her colorful clothing and her laugh and her intelligence.  I have a picture of the two of them from the 50s, on a camping trip, Mom and Gerry, standing together, one arm around the other,  hands on hips, legs further apart than was traditionally lady-like, sunglasses, pedal-pushers, broad smiles; Gerry in sensible saddle shoes with socks, my Mom in shoes not quite suitable for the river beach they were standing on; two great friends, confident women, wonderful role-models for their daughters.  They did what the times expected of them:  they raised their children, they catered to their husbands and they kept their houses clean.  Gerry and my Mom, though, did it with such style and good humor they made it look like fun.

When I retired 2 years ago it was part of my plan to get Mom and Gerry together for some lunches with me and I succeeded twice.  The first time I took them to the Silverdale Hotel cafe and I got to listen to the two old friends reminiscing and laughing together again.   Gerry got Pam to come to the second lunch and we ate Mexican food  and admired pictures and told stories of kids and grandchildren and great grandchildren.  Gerry told us she was going to have surgery in April.  That was the last time I saw her--walking away with Pam, smiling, waving.  I am going to remember her the way she was that day--positive, excited by her family and their activities, joking with Pam, looking to the future.  She was dressed in lavender  and her red hair was still thick and curly, her laugh still low and vibrant, her mind sharp.  She was the Gerry I always remembered and the Gerry that will live in my heart for the rest of my life.