This One is for Nancy

Adolescent girls all over the world today are playing with their best friends.  More than half of them are plotting on how to stay best friends forever.  How will they find brothers they can marry?  Where will they live and raise their kids together?  Most of these girls are just dreaming.  Things like that do not happen in this world, it is too perfect.  Except it does every now and then.  It did for my mom, Jennifer Lewis McDaniel and her best friends Nancy Widle McDaniel and Connie Woodman McDaniel.  It happened for them and because of it mom’s childhood friends make up a significant part of my childhood memories.  Each of the friends had two children and the six of us played like friends, fought like siblings and love each other unconditionally as the family we are.

We lost Nancy early this week.  Cancer’s mean, vile and disgusting presence in this world took her from our family.  It was a ugly fight and we are thankful she is no longer in pain.  But her departure from our physical world is hard for me to comprehend.

She loved me, I know that.  She was not an emotional person but she was good to the core.  I remember her not making us stop playing kickball in her long hallway until after Chris and I had kicked a picture off the wall.  After.  Then she raised her voice to say “take it outside”.  And we did.  The orchard was her front yard.  We had a lot o room to kick. But she let us play,  she let us be kids.

Nancy accompanied my sister on her first beach trip.  We have the picture of Nancy pushing the stroller and Shelley’s chubby cheeks almost concealed the baby girl smile but not quite.  Nancy was not our mother’s friend, was our second mother.  Chris and Eric did not mind sharing.  They got two sisters out of the deal.  Shelley and I will do anything for our brothers even today.  Every breathe taken this week has been a prayer for the two of and her families.

Nancy loved Disney World.  One of her last wishes was to visit there.  I hope the Heaven she is experiencing is much like the Greatest Place on Earth” and she gets the VIP pass so there are no lines.

I hope the streets are lined with beautiful flowers for her to enjoy.  Nancy was gifted with a talent for creating beautiful floral arrangements.  My sister, Shelley and I were blessed with this gift firsthand when she did the flowers for our weddings. 

Painted ceramics, cake molds lining her kitchen walls, crafts for the Mid Valley Bazaar, Christmas gingerbread men wrapped in plastic delivered every Christmas season were trademarks of Nancy.  Hers were home made Gingerbread men whose arms and legs tore off they were so good, they did not break like store bought cookies. 

Every Christmas season is a display of Nancy’s projects and her love of the season.  She did Pinterest projects before any of us know what Pinterest was.  

Nancy was a Valley girl. Nearly every street holds a story her and mom could repeat, it seemed every house had a memory they could recount.  The Valley was always her home.  She spent a few years in Uvalde, a few in George West but make no mistake, this was her home.  She was born here, she fought for her life here and she will return to the Heavens with her heart rightfully buried deep in the rich Valley soil.  On her heavenly ascent to she got one last look of the palm lined streets of the Rio Grande Valley and I bet she smiled.