June and the death of a friend, Dorinda Van der Martin

As I read and enjoyed Katie's new posts and then turned to Elizabeth's only to discover nothing new yet...I realized nothing new from me either... I will split posts up since I know David doesn't like long posts.

June was busy. I spent too many hours getting ready to leave my work in good order before going on our trip to San Diego, Phoenix, and ID. I got everything done but I worked pretty late Wednesday evening (7:00isn) when Kent and I had decided to leave work around 2:00ish. So yes, that was an additional 5 hours... But the t's were crossed and all i's were dotted... Kent picked me up, upset with me.

One of our friends, Dorinda Van der Martin, (actually my only one in Anchorage) had a brain aneurysm on Monday evening. We heard about it on Tuesday. Kent took some flowers to the hospital on Wednesday but she was in ICU and he could not leave her flowers. We thought she was still alive and so might make it... We took the flowers to Wes so he could take them to Dorinda later as we were flying out that night. Her family was there, including her sister from southern China (Shekou?) and her parents, along with Missy (going to BYU-ID) and Nathan and his family (live in our ward). We were told Dorinda was brain dead and tests were being done for organ transplant compatibility before the lifelines were turned off. We were heartbroken--for Wes and their family as well as for us.

A friend we had gone camping with, shopping with, laughed, eaten and played games with (just the Saturday evening before), and was several years younger than us, had died. It has left us with a hole in our hearts.

This is a picture of Wes, Dorinda and Missy on our trip to Valdez last September. We stopped and hiked to one of the glaciers. It was a little more strenuous hike than I thought it would be but we were all glad that we did it. You could hear rocks dropping and rolling down while you were in the space created between the glacier and the earth. Dorinda wanted to get the picture over with quickly! She was afraid something was going to cave-in on her. The glacier is blue but the wind picks up the dirt so it is "dirty" unless you wipe the dirt off.

Well, it was hard for Kent to stay mad at me. At least I was alive. I hurried, packed and cleaned house. And yes, I was ready to go to the airport on time and we made the plane. Although we were looking forward to seeing our family, we were sorry to leave our friend behind, not being there to support Wes and Missy or be at the funeral. I wonder how long Kent will be grateful that I'm still alive and not get so upset with me when I'm late picking him up, or buy something he thinks is useless.