Here it is.
Mary told me she had learned all about me at her high school, St. Joseph's Academy in St. Paul. One of my high school girlfriends was Marcia Mydra and we had dated quite a bit during our high school years. Well, believe it or not, St. Joe's had assigned seating for lunch and Mary and Marcia were assigned to the same lunch table for a number of years. Apparently, Marcia did a credible job of making me out to be a really good guy and Mary listened and learned.
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| From Mary E Quirk Hughes Lamey--Early Years |
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| From R.I.P. Mary Elizabeth Teresa Quirk Hughes Lamey |
In the fall of 1965, Mary headed off to the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph Minnesota. I attended St. Thomas College in St. Paul living at home. Just after school started, I ran into a friend of Mary's, Kathy Gaughn I think, who reminded me about Mary. Mary and I started a snail mail correspondence at that time--because that's all there was then and phone calls were way too expensive. It didn't take long before Mary and I developed a thing and had a long distance relationship going which lasted from the fall of 1965 through the spring of 1968. Mary would come down from school every 2nd or 3rd weekend and I often picked her up at the bus station and we'd haul off to whatever social event was planned.
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| From Mary E Quirk Hughes Lamey--Early Years |
In the spring of 1968, I developed cold feet-itis and we split. Mary went on, met John Hughes, and shortly after graduation they were married. The last time I saw Mary was a week or two before her wedding when we met for a goodbye lunch triggered by the invitation she sent me to attend her wedding on Aug 2, 1969. I should note I had not seen her from April of 1968 until the pre-wedding lunch. The day after our lunch, I drove to California to start work at Fairchild Semiconductor in the San Francisco Bay area.
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| From Mary E Quirk Hughes Lamey--Early Years |
I met Susan Carley in summer school (1968) at the U of Minnesota while taking my liberal arts electives. Sue moved to San Francisco to live with her sister in the early part of 1970 and we were married in September of 1970 while living in California although the wedding was in St Paul.
Mary and John produced Tim (b1971) and Lara (b1973). They also adopted two boys, one of which stayed close to Mary and that is Daniel (b1977). No words of mine can express the depth of love Mary had for her kids. This picture is of Mary's three, Tim, Daniel and Lara, at our wedding in Monterey in 1996.
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| From Mary E Quirk Hughes Lamey--Later Years |
When Mary and John were married, John was attending dental school at the U of Minn and after graduation he fulfilled an ROTC requirement by moving to Yuma reporting to a Marine base there. After mustering out, they moved to Phoenix and then eventually Scottsdale. Mary returned to school in 1982 and graduated as a lawyer in 1985. In 1990, she was appointed at the Chief Administrative Law Judge for the Arizona Department of Real Estate. Quite a mouthful!
As for me, Sue and I produced Christopher (b1971) and Erika (b1979). We were in California until 1974 when we moved to Roseville, Minnesota. Erika was born after I earned an MBA in night school (1978). Ten years after moving to Minnesota, one Silicon Valley company wanted me so they helped me bridge to the cost of California real estate and we moved in 1984 from Roseville and returned to Los Gatos where we had lived 1970-74. I am still in the same house we bought in 1984 but dot com bubble money allowed a significant remodel in 2000.
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| From Mary E Quirk Hughes Lamey--Later Years |
In 1990, a six high school reunion was held. Our Roman Catholic education was all male or all female but our social lives revolved around the weekend dances and other events and students from all six schools interacted on the social front. A six school reunion sounded great because we'd have a chance to interact with our entire social circle, not just our classmates. I had no idea if Mary would be at that reunion and she had no idea if I would be there. During the evening, I ran into John Hughes at the bar and he re-introduced me to Mary. For the next couple of years, we each had a complex life consisting of marital therapy, divorce proceedings and again, a snail mail correspondence. By 1992, we were living independently, Mary in Arizona and I was in California. And, again, another long-distance relationship.
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| Mary showing her engagement ring on Easter Sunday, 1996 |
By 1995 our relationship had flourished and Judge Mary moved to Los Gatos at my invitation giving up her judgeship and in 1996 we were married. Given our ages at the time, we had no children of our own.
But we do have five grand children between us. Mary's daughter, Lara, and her husband, Scott, have produced two beautiful children, Madelyn in 2000 and Emma in 2004. Mary's son, Tim, had a daughter, Charlize, also in 2004. And my son, Chris, and his spouse, Casey, have had two children Danny (also 2004) and Sarah (2006). The 2004 string of Emma, Charlize and Danny is our grandkiddy "hat trick". Hey, we're from Minnesota, hockey rules!
Scott and Lara live in Pasadena, Scott is in the movie industry and Lara concentrates on raising the two girls. Tim lives in Tucson and is a stock broker. My son Chris lives in Denver and is a software developer and startup junkie while Casey stays home with the kids. Mary's son Daniel lives in Pennsylvania with his SO, Kamie, and they seem to be getting along just fine. Daniel just mustered out of the Army and is planning to spend his GI bill on a medical education. My daughter, Erika, lives in New York and is an investment banker.
Because our kids were adults when we reconnected and because I travel for business, we had lots of frequent flier miles to travel the world. Every so often, Mary would announce she was getting "itchy feet" which was her way of saying she wanted to travel. And, travel we did. After all, with the frequent flier miles, our first trip to Paris cost $14.50 each for business class! We visited Paris, Normandy, France, London, the Cotwalds in England, Barcelona, Florence, Rome, Venice, Dubrovnik, Hvar, Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, Stockholm, Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Great Barrier Reef, Sydney, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, Bali, Hong Kong, Anchorage, Juneau, Vancouver, Minnesota, Portland and many, many trip to Hawaii.
In March of 2009 while visiting Chris, Casey, Danny and Sarah in Denver, Mary presented her symptoms that we later learned was cholangiocarcinoma. In April of 2009 they removed her gall bladder and confirmed the presence of cancer in her abdomen (metastasized, unfortunately). In May of 2009 they removed 78% of her liver in an attempt to capture the cancer cells. Unfortunately, the margins were inadequate (positive) so they put her on heavy duty chemo and radiation in July and August. She was recovering nicely and was even baking and cooking on a regular basis again. In November 2009 an upper back pain developed. By February 2010, the oncology team was convinced Mary was cancer free and it was up to the pain specialists to fix the pain. In fact, on Feb 22, 2010, the head oncologist gave Mary a hug and a peck on the check and proclaimed she was cancer free.
By the 20th of March, we knew something was wrong. On March 26th, she was re-admitted to Stanford hospitals. The doctors tried all sorts of stuff to turn the situation around but by March 31, the doctor told me there was nothing they could do except make her comfortable and I should assemble the family. All the offspring and grandchildren arrived the next day and we had time with Mary through Easter Sunday. On Monday, she went totally unconscious as her liver and kidneys had failed and her brain succumbed to hepatic encephalopathy. Her lungs and heart kept working until April 8th at 4:40PM. In the room were Mary, her sister Reenie and me when she took her final breath.
I wrote on her crematorium container:
Mary, my love
Let your itchy feet carry you
to new and wonderful places,
Let your spirit hold
and keep our love,
All Ways and
Always
Pat
Taken at Marge and Dave's Christmas Party, December 2009
