Another Life Well Lived

Can it be three years since I wrote about PianoLady's mother passing away? And now another mother who was a virtual mother to me has passed away.

I have four good friends who span the years with me. One dates from my second grade and her third grade year. Two were friends at the [now] University of Central Florida, and one was my closest friend at Florida State University. We met in the summer of 1969, and our friendship has spanned 41 years.

Polly knew how to laugh and have fun like no one I know from those years. Once when I was in the FSU infirmary for a reaction to yet another drug designed to stop my headaches, she went to Baskin-Robbins (we called it BRICP) and brought me exactly the flavors I wanted in exactly the order I desired. (She tells me I drew a picture of the ice cream cone and the order in which the scoops were to be placed, but I don't really remember that. Maybe it's an urban myth.) We used to sit in her room in Dorman Hall and play an LP of the Supremes and the Temptations. Do you remember record players and how you could leave the arm up and it would just play over and over again? We turned that puppy up and listened to that duet album for hours. The quarter of her senior year when Polly was interning in Orlando, she lived with me. All I remember about that time was lots of laughter and a great friendship.

One quarter that I was at FSU, Daddy had gotten me a Chevrolet Camaro Pace Car.

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I can't stand that some of you may have no idea what I'm talking about.
Look at this picture and imagine it without the writing on the door. That's my car. Boy, did Polly and I have fun in that car. I can't believe I got rid of it because it didn't have air conditioning. You wanna talk about spoiled kids?!











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There was an infamous episode when Polly and I, along with two of her Alpha Xi Delta sisters, put the top down and went for a rather fast ride out by the Tallahassee airport. When the policeman pulled me over, I spun him some line, in my best Southern drawl, about my daddy tellin' me to take it out and blow the carbon out of the engine. I got away with a warning ticket.

One January, on a trip back to Leesburg and Orlando, we put the top down and ran the heater at full blast to stay warm. The eight-track player was blaring Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Ah, we lived life together.

On one of my trips from Tallahassee back to Orlando, I gave Polly a ride home to Leesburg, FL, where I stopped and visited with her family. For someone who had never felt she fit into her family, I was in heaven. Meeting the Millers was a sip of freshly-squeezed orange juice, the proverbial breath of fresh air. I was welcomed as a family member from the moment I walked through their front door. Their home, a simple two-bedroom, one-bath Florida ranch, was light years away from the large lakefront home I had grown up in. But it was simply and tastefully furnished and filled with love. Polly's two younger sisters were as delightful as she, and always made me feel I was one of their sisters. From that first meeting forward, her parents were "Mom" and "Dad" to me.

Polly has gone on to achieve great success in the United States Air Force, where she currently holds the rank of Major General. I'm so glad her mother lived to see her success. I remember years ago, Polly told me she felt her ability to get along in the armed services was because of her having grown up sharing a bedroom with two sisters. Negotiation was an art they learned early on.

At around 5:00 p.m. on Monday, March 1, 2010, Jean Miller left our world while sleeping, and went wherever we're going next. She was a schoolteacher, a loving wife, mother, grandmother, and greatgrandmother. She was the kind of person who let you know how much you mattered to her.

I am saddened by her death, and grateful that she didn't suffer. I'm honored to have known her and to have mattered to her.

She mattered to me.

My heart is with her daughters and son-in-law and their families as they adjust to life without her.