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150. Birgie - 2007-02-12 20:22:54 |
| I still see Erin even after a year of her being gone. Sometimes there’s a young girl with an Erin-like smile or someone that looks just like her from the back or someone does something clever and creative that reminds me how Erin used to do things. I look at her picture in the family group photo - the photo that has Erin and Katie on each side of Sarah and with Nicholas on Sarah’s lap. I run my finger over Erin’s picture and bless her and tell her how much we miss her and love her. |
 149. Sarah Wallbaum - 2007-01-28 16:48:15 |
Thank you for your lovely post, Phillip. As we approach the one year anniversary of Erin’s passing, I still check her guest almost daily, as the memories and feelings that her friends and family have shared here have comforted my heart in ways I can only roughly express. I am so grateful to Mike and Katie for conceiving and creating this lovely medium for us to share Erin’s laughter, love and art. Only recently has the strangle hold of her loss begun to lighten around my heart, enough to allow me to hear her laughter again, if only yet in my dreams. Thank you for reminding me once again of how uniquely she touched everyone in her life.
mama sarah |
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148. Phillip S. Brimble - 2007-01-27 05:09:36 |
I suppose we all have a place in our homes where we tuck important things. Things we don’t take time to file away, but which we don’t want to mislay. We just want to know about where they are so when can alway return to them. You know, like your car title or birth certificate.
My place is the middle drawer of the blue night stand adjacent to the bed. i don’t visit it often, but I know "about" what the drawer holds.
And for no reason at all, I was drawn to open the drawer last night. Not looking for anything in particular, I shuffled through a few papers and found one folded over. Unfolding it, I the sheet of photographs of Erin handed out at her memorial at Bodega.
I sat on the side of the bed and studied each and ever picture and tried to imagine wha she was saying at the time it was taken. I could her her voice, I really could, But what I really wanted to hear mostly was her laughter.
And looking at those pictures my mind drifted back to a daytrip I took years ago, even before Erin was born, to the small town of Brookfield, Ks., pooulation 200 and dwindling, home of the Brookfield Hotel and Fried Chichen restaurant.
I went there, to Brookfield, to meet a man I had heard about, an old man, or so I thought at the time, of maybe 70, possibly older. He had been described to me by a woman friend as one of life’s true characters.In those days I have always been drawn to those living the uncommond life, and his was exactly that.
when he opened the door of the red, sand-stone, 2-story house his father had built in 1874, and where he had been born and lived every since, I just had to go in. I entered that cluttered house full of books and 27 cats and sat and talked with him, actually really listened to him , for most of 12 hours, without breaking for a meal or a drink.
His life was a real story, and he was putting it down on paper, and his was to become the longest, if not the largest book ever written, he said. And when I saw the manuscripte stacked against a wall more than 3 or 4 feet high, I knew he was reaching his goal.
He had much to talk about,having not left the 1-acre yard for three years, and finding a willing listening in a town of 200 that he wasn’t either related to, or who hadn’t already heard is story, was a welcome treat for him.
That interview evolved into several years of trading letters, usually him written to me with stories about his cats, or struggling as a freelance poets in west Texas during the depression. He always addressed my by "philsys,; for reasons never given. And I never asked.
Like Erin, that old man didn’t get to finish his goal.
But I think Erin would have found that old man delightful, and I know he would have written her great letters, like he did me.
Maybe that is why I thought of him after all thsse year. I also used to keep his letters nearby, in the same place in a differnt nightstand, becuase of the good read. After many, many years, and a couple of moves, and much rereading, they became frayed, so I put them away in a safer, more permanent place.Maybe I will take them out one last time for a final read. But not yet.
Like that old man, Erin too was a character, but in a much higher sense, and grander meaning of the term. She was memorable, not for stories she told, though she could tell them with the best, but for that inner something, that each and every person who has signed this guestbook has seen or felt or heard of.
I put Erin’s picture page back in the nightstadn, with my other important documents. And I no doubt will look at those pictures of the lovely woman many time again. |
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147. Elizabeth Kohen - 2006-12-01 02:14:38 |
I missed seeing Erin’s smiling face this year over Thanksgiving. Her laugh-filled love still shines in my heart, but it’s not the same without her here. I miss her terribly. I hope you’re all finding comfort in family and friends this holiday. I’m thinking of you~
With love,
Elizabeth |
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146. Tammy - 2006-11-25 20:52:48 |
My good thoughts and prayers are with Sarah and family over the upcoming holidays and their missing Erin. Erin continues to touch us all deeply. What a great spirit and soul.
Healing thoughts,
Tammy |
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145. Gerry Quinton (Zeter) - 2006-10-24 03:58:22 |
| Erin, still thinking of you. Love you! Gerry |
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144. Casey Malone - 2006-10-17 13:50:43 |
I knew Erin because one of my best friends was very close to her for a while when we lived in Urbana. I met Erin two or three times. I am glad to have had this memorial website. I read through it all and looked at all the photos. I noticed that there were some photos of Erin in Flagstaff, AZ, which is where I live. This morning I have said a joyful prayer to the (sacred) mountain here, thanking the universe for its interconnectedness, and for the gift of Erin, who was a beautiful thread in its tapestry.
Casey |
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143. Aaron Kutil - 2006-09-14 20:49:10 |
Erin, what a joy it was to finally truely get to know you this past Thanksgiving. When I learned of your passing through Tammy, it came as such a shock, that this truely amazing woman was taken so soon from us. Though as I said that holiday how I wish we had known each other sooner, I am truely thankful that I had the opportunity to be blessed with that special light that clearly touched so many people. You will be surely missed. My prayers and condolences to the family.
Aaron J Kutil (class O’ 94) |
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142. james roady - 2006-08-27 01:36:18 |
| did not know you at all Erin,,,,will see you on the other Side some day.Just knowing Tammy and what I have learned from her about you is good enough till I get to see you in Heaven.You have been a Guiding Light for many people;wish I could have been one of the,,,,,but through meeting Sara and being Friends with Tammy i feel like i Know you already.Miss you and didnt even know you |
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141. Bill - 2006-08-24 19:13:24 |
| I only knew Erin briefly, being in some of her classes last fall at JCCC. We helped each other out, sharing tips on class projects. Here it is, the start of another semester. Erin, I’ll miss your smiling face and your helpfulness. My sympathies to Erin’s family and friends. Erin really did touch all that came in contact with her. She is missed! |
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