Chapter 14 of Family Memories - happiest day in your life & hardest thing your faced

Tell me about one of the happiest days of your life.

Lorraine: Going to the beach on a picnic was such a treat.

John & Marcella: December 26, 1965. We got married in a snow storm.

Arlie: There are three. Marrying my wife. The day our son was born. The day our grandson was born.

Denny: I haven’t had it yet but I’ve had lots of happy days. Camping with mom and dad in the Olympic National Forest in an old tent. Going trout fishing with my dad on the Sol Duc River, or salmon fishing with dad in a little rowboat he built. Packing a little plywood boat (my dad helped me to build) down to the boat haven with Joe Nott to go rowing or exploring. Putting on an exhibition downtown with water skis I bought from a catalog from Roy Hawkins. They may have even been the first in Port Townsend. We’d attract maybe 20 or 30 cars that would pull up to watch this strange novelty. Kirby Sooy would take pictures. Buying my first brand new bicycle with my paper route money. Learning to drive my big brother’s car at age 13.

Joyce: Hard to pick just one….the day my husband proposed. The day my divorce was final. The day I became a grandparent. The day we moved back to Port Townsend from Kirkland. The day my youngest had twins. My first trip to Reno.

Dale: The happiest day of my life was June 21, 1969. The song Jo-Jo had just come out and the Beatles were singing: “Get back, get back, get back to where you belong.” I did just that. I was honorably discharged from the Navy.

Janie: Birth of my children, Eddie and Edwina…and that they were healthy.

Jimmy: When I married Holly, of course. She’s the love of my life, not only the 4^th. Haha

Sue S: I have had many happy days: marriage, children, and family. I was pretty excited, though, when Don won a trip to the Oregon coast.

Lill: Getting my first job after dental assisting; various marathon runs.  Finishing my first marathon at Seaside, OR in 1974. Running the Boston Marathon in 1978, and Skagit Valley Ultra where both Dana and I finished first in 1982. Completing graduate school.

Marlee: The day Jeff asked me to marry him. I was a senior in high school and it was the day before Thanksgiving. He had planned to take me on a romantic walk down the beach and ask me there—I had washed my LONG hair earlier and it was too cold to go outside with wet hair. I was drying dishes at the sink and he just popped the question out of the blue. I said yes, hugged him, and took the ring upstairs to show my mom.

Cindy: In 1986 my baby daughter, Mirinda, had E coli and her kidneys stopped functioning. She was on dialysis for two weeks. The day her kidneys started working again (we found out she had a wet diaper) has got to be the happiest day of my life.

Sue W: When I saw my daughter for the first time and thought I was going to have a son.

Mary: I’m living them right now – in my 30’s. I’m more confident than I’ve ever been in my life and I can do whatever I want.

 

Tell me about the hardest thing you ever faced.

John: Having heart bypass surgery in 1984 or 1985.

Marcella: My first marriage.

Joyce: Telling my mother that I wanted to live with my father after their divorce. Telling my husband I was divorcing him. Knowing my son was driving a tank in the Gulf War.

Dale: Coping with my wife when she suffered a several-week episode of emotional breakdown of crisis proportion.

Sue S: The hardest thing I ever faced was the brain tumor Tanna had, and the loss of my father. When the doctor told us Tanna was going to be all right, that became one of my happiest moments.

Lill: Being informed by my case worker that my brother and I would not be returning home to our biological parents. Overcoming a panic attack when climbing Mt. Hooker in the Wind River Range in 1982 with college friends of Dana’s. My foster and adoptive parents passing in 1995, 1996, and 1997. Completing graduate school.

Marlee: Being told two years ago that I had MS and then seven months later, being told my husband, Jeff, also had it.

Cindy: I think my dad’s cancer was probably the hardest thing. I wish I had been older and wiser and could have helped my mother through it better.

Bill: The death of my mother and going through my divorce.

Sue W: Telling my folks I was pregnant at 17.

Denny: This would have been easier to answer if I was 20 or 30 years younger. However, probably the most difficult time that I faced was when my first wife left me. It wasn’t her leaving as much as facing myself. Friends and family continued to be very supportive during this time and I leaned heavily upon my relationship with God.