The Unfinished Story

I don’t just miss who Kirsten was, I miss who she was going to be. I miss the rest of her life, the unfinished story. Sometimes I make up the rest of the story myself and it goes like this...

Kirsten would finish college in four years. She would struggle a little, but would graduate from Shippensburg University with a degree in Graphic Design and start working at GKA, the advertising agency that our friend, Jodi, co-owns. She would plan her new and trendy outfit for each day the night before. She would get along great with Jodi and would model herself after her. They had a lot in common: energy, enthusiasm, cheerfulness and a positive outlook. Kirsten would do well there and be successful and well liked. She would also spend time with Jodi’s kids because she missed them from the days when she used to be their after school nanny.

Sam

Emma

 

Kirsten would marry at about 25. She would marry an ordinary, down to earth kind of guy and have two kids, a boy named Colton and a girl named Blaire or Emma, or maybe two boys. I would be there for the deliveries, along with her husband and her best friend. She would quit work or cut her hours to part time to be a good mom. Being a mother would come naturally to her. There are pictures of her on facebook holding friends' babies and she looks so comfortable with them. 

Allyssa

She would be a great wife and mother. She would probably try to be a mom like our old next door neighbor, Diana, Marc's mom.  Kirsten spent a lot of time next door and I think she learned to be so organized and punctual from Diana. Kirsten's children would always be nicely dressed, probably in designer clothes, and be well kept and clean. She would spend lots of time with them, play with them and take them places. Her house would always be neat and clean and the kids would always get to school on time. She and her little family would come over for dinner a couple times a week and her kids would love us. They would love swimming in the pool in the summer and watching football games in the winter. She and I would go out for girls' days, going to the mall and to lunch. We would talk on the phone everyday. She would ask me for recipes or advice on childcare or how to do something she needed help with and she would enthusiastically tell me all about her day. It would be a play-by-play description, not a single detail left out.

Later, when Ken and I got older, Kirsten would insist that we come to live with her so she could take care of us. She would think we were such cute, little old people and would do my hair and make-up for me. When we passed on, she would make sure everything was done right, no matter what the cost. She would make sure that we were dressed nicely and that it was a funeral that would honor us. She would speak at our funerals of her fond memories and of the things she learned from each of us. She would wear my ring everyday and have pictures of us in her house because she missed us.

And, although she missed us, she would live a long and happy life. She would continue to be the Kirsten we all knew and loved…cheerful, funny, helpful, pretty and classy, brightening everyone’s life she touched.

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.”

                                                                            ― John Greenleaf Whittier