Dear Paxton,

My mind has been going a million different directions lately, but for some reason, I can’t seem to stop thinking about one person.  I feel like it might be because I haven’t ever jotted down anything about her for you, and I don’t want one more day to go by, one more chance to forget anything about her.  Let me tell you about Exit 96A.

Exit 96A is off interstate 55.  It’s on the way to Clinton, when I’m going to see Grammy and Pops.  It’s where I used to turn, drive a few miles, cut through the Rochester school parking lot, and pull into the familiar 2-story white house that was packed with character, antiques, and a feeling of comfort.  Jones’ house.

In my second year of teaching, there were some change-ups on staff due to lower numbers of students in the middle school.  We found out that we were going to be getting a new teacher from the Middle School, Sarah Jones.  I didn’t know Sarah Jones well, but I knew I’d like her.  We played at a staff basketball game together, we saw each other briefly at district meetings, and we shared a couple work acquaintances.  I was walking Jersey one day after school and she pulled up her white SUV on the side of the road.  I can still see the license plates.  We chatted about life at the elementary school, any reservations she had, and I promised to take her under my wing… a really funny thing to do to a veteran teacher when I was still a newbie.

Jones was in the classroom across from mine.  I was teaching kindergarten and first grade resource and she was teaching in the structured classroom.  Her classroom was for students with higher needs than what could be met in the resource room.  It took no time for us to become friends.  We set up our desks right across from each other…not that either of us ever spent any time in them.  She appreciated the students and would do anything in the world for them…they were her drive.  One of our students would say something hilarious, and we’d immediately say, “Go tell Jones what you just said” or she’d say, “Go tell Powell what you just told me.”  We shared a love for education, a love for struggling students, and a genuine appreciation of sarcastic, quick-witted humor.

It was a visit to her house one afternoon that my love of photography really took off.  You couldn’t help but be inspired when you walked into the house.  She had old windows hung up all over the walls, her two kids’ pictures inside.  She had old keys on the walls, a room that stayed Christmas all year, and a room full of red vintage toys.  In the kitchen was an old wash basin, the adjoining bathroom was red,white, and blue, and her in-ground pool was always a happening place.  The house screamed from the inside out.  She got the house by walking up to the front door, knocking on that door, and asking if she could buy that house.  It wasn’t for sale, there was no sign, but she knew she wanted that house, and she got that house. That’s exactly how Jones lived.

She was married to an amazing man and father, named Lance.  They met at Eastern Illinois University (the same college I graduated from, years later).  Lance was a basketball star and all the girls thought he was a hot item.  They called him “Lance Romance” and hung signs in the windows of Andrews Hall.  Despite the many girls screaming for him at the games, he knew one of them could scream louder than them all.  They had a love for each other that was so obvious.  They also couldn’t have been any more different.  She called him “dead with a heartbeat” and talked about how nothing really ever got to him.  She was loud spoken and wore loud clothes and just was loud all over.  Lance was/is a well-recognized lawyer.  He dressed in suits and ties and spoke very little when we were around.  He didn’t really have a chance to say much.  Your dad and I would go out to eat with Lance and Sarah.  Your dad and Lance would talk about nothing (aka… sports, numbers, whatever) while Sarah and I gave the waiter a hard time, told stories, and imitated various people/kids and tried to guess who the other person was.  It was like looking at us (your dad and I) in 30 years, only it worked even right now.

Jones had a son and a daughter, both fairly close to my age.  The fact that she seriously could be my mother, didn’t matter to me, or to her.  People often said it was a darn good thing we didn’t meet until later in her life, because we would have caused all kinds of trouble together.  We would go and watch her son play basketball at Eastern.  She’d stand up and do this half yelling/half barking sound and throw her arms up in the air when he scored.  You always knew when Jones was in the gym, room, hallway, house, etc…

One Thanksgiving, I don’t know exactly why, but we ended up at that familiar two story beautiful house.  Growing up, holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas were reserved for your immediate family.  That’s the thing, we were all her immediate family.  When we showed up to a table covered with food from one end to the next, we weren’t the only “adopted family members.”  Taylor’s basketball team, the ones who didn’t have a place to go, were all there also.

Her wardrobe was something that I can’t even begin to explain.  When people are no longer in your life, or even when they are, but they are changing, I feel like you always picture them the same exact way.  For instance, it doesn’t matter how old my dad (Pop-Pop) gets, I picture him with a dark beard, a dark head of hair, walking uncle Logan and I through the timber to hunt mushrooms.  It doesn’t matter that his hair has long changed, that’s how I still see him.  I picture your daddy in a blue shirt and khakis, just like he was wearing the first time I ever saw him and told people I was going to marry him.  I see Jones in a tie-dye karate uniform.  She had some amazing clothes, she was very stylish, but every once in a while, she busted out an old karate uniform that had been tie-dyed various shades of yellows, greens and blues.  She wore one of those strands that turn your glasses into a necklace when you’re not wearing them.  Only hers was made of colorful beads.  She rocked a hair-do that most could never pull off, let alone be brave enough to say, “Hey, I want to try this.”  She oozed coolness.  She had a bright yellow pea coat in the winter, and she loved to wear TOMS shoes, the sparkly ones.  Every time I put yours on, I think of her.  She walked with intent, as fast as she could, and her feet turned out to the sides every step she took.

By the end of our first year working together, she had me driving down to Arkansas to shoot her brother’s wedding…in a cave.  It was my first wedding, and it was in a cave.  She kept saying, “Powell, if you can shoot a wedding in a cave, you can do anything.  You need to get shirts made.  I shoot in caves.”  It was a beautiful intimate ceremony, and I grew even closer to her family.  I heard stories of her growing up, of her parents passing away too soon, I witnessed the bond between herself and her brother.  We took some really amazing pictures, because she has the same eye for beauty that I do.  We laughed as her window got stuck rolled all the way down and the cowboys took her entire door apart to fix it.  We put our bare feet in a creek called “Little Sugar.”  A creek she used to put her feet in when she was little.  We stayed in a little rented condo, her, Lance, your dad and I.  We talked about coming back down in the summer and canoeing/floating down the river.  We never got to take that trip.

Moments were precious for Jones, and nothing was taken for granted.  One day while at school, after months of not feeling right, she started bleeding heavily and had to go to the hospital.  After tests and speaking to several doctors, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer.  It made me really mad.  I’d lost several people to that stinkin’ cancer word, but I never imagined it hitting someone so full of life.  She kept a positive outlook through the entire ordeal.  She had ups and downs, and somehow managed to teach through chemo appointments and a prognosis that didn’t look promising.

She found refuge in teaching.  She was one year away from retiring.  One year away from watching her son graduate from Eastern.  One year from relaxing by her pool with her feet up.  One year from really living, and she was told she was dying.  Most people would give up, but that’s not Jones.  She came to school everyday she could.  She hugged her students tighter, she laughed a little more, and as much as she didn’t care what people thought of her before, now she was downright blunt with her opinions.  She carried herself with a grace that was reflected in her friendships, her students’ eyes, and her family’s love.

Her classroom was moved down the hallway on her last year of teaching, and I was not happy with that move.  I found reasons to have field trips down to her classroom, and I soaked in her spirit every chance I got.  She got bad news, then some better news, and then really terrible news, all in a matter of a month.  We brought the staff together to pray and I challenged the teachers to be as dedicated to the field as she was in those last few months.  I challenged myself.  We celebrated her retirement and the retirement of our social worker.  Instead of a typical retirement party, we had a full-blown beach themed extravaganza.  We had a slushy machine, a photo booth, and even did a song and a mad-lib dedicated to her.  She sat up there, wearing her beautiful blonde wig, and heard stories from fellow teachers.

I couldn’t really imagine school without her in it, and it’s hard to believe there was a time when she was at a different school.  She was one of the first people I told when I found out I was pregnant.  I texted her a picture of Jersey wearing a shirt that said, “Look who’s going to be a big sister” and she replied back, “Cute dog, what’s the shirt say?”  I told her to zoom in, and she replied, “You know I don’t know how to work this damn phone, call me already.”  We went to her pool early that summer, and we just relaxed.  She showed me how her hair was growing back, fuzzy and gray, and we watched as Jersey swam circles in her pool.  Like me, she loved dogs like people and earlier that year she had to put her beloved golden retreiver, Bizzy down.  Biz had her own couch in the Santa room, she was spoiled rotten.  The funny thing was, she escaped every chance she got.  Bizzy would escape out that front door and hobble along to the neighbors house.  But she always came back, and when she did, Jones tried to be mad, but Biz just wagged her tail and knew she was loved.  At the pool, Jones talked about being short of breath, and just in general pain.  Something that she had become a master of hiding, so I knew it wasn’t good.  When we walked at Relay for Life that year, it took on a whole new meaning.  You see, both her and the social worker that had retired that year had been diagnosed with cancer.  They both took their last breaths within a couple weeks of each other.  You wait your whole life to start living, and then you start dying.  It’s a sick, sick thing.

Jones started to fade pretty fast after that last visit.  She responded to less phone calls, and wasn’t up for as many visits.  I knew how terrible this form of cancer had to be, because if anyone could beat it, it was her. I was sitting at home one afternoon right before the new school year was starting when my principal called and asked if I was home. Not a good feeling.  We talked about Jones, how she was really starting to decline and we cried and talked and cried some more.  I was on my way to Springfield when I got the call from David, her brother.  David was the one who got married a few summers back.  He always called her Sally, even though her name was Sarah.  I always got a kick out of that.  As soon as I saw his number, I pulled over, I breathed deeply, and I tasted the salt from a tear before I even mustered up the courage to hit answer on my phone.

“Sally’s slipping, Jackie.  She doesn’t have much time left.  Can you come over?”  I turned my car and headed to Exit 96A.  I pulled in, and David came out immediately.  He hugged me and said, “She really wanted to meet that baby of yours” and I fell to the ground.  I choose to not remember the way I saw Jones that night.  It was the first time that we both remained in silence for more than 5 seconds.  I kissed her forehead, hugged her family, and told her to go on home.  It was also one of the first times she actually listened.  I drove home and forced myself to remember the feisty woman in the tie-dyed karate uniform.

I got the call the next morning, August 21st, 2012 while I was teaching my brand new class.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the doctors talked about me being ready for this new baby around August 21st of this year. Her funeral was beautiful, just like her life was.  There were TVs projecting school plays she had been in, along with a slideshow of pictures that were just sneak peeks into her wild ways.  On my way out of the funeral home, I glanced at the line, stretching clear outside, to see those same basketball players from that Thanksgiving meal.  Everyone in that line, no matter their relationship, was family.

I tell people all the time that you have the fire that Jones had. I see it in the turn-out of your feet, the spark in your eyes when you’re getting ready to do something you shouldn’t, and the way you stand there and cuss me out in your own language when I take something away from you, like a permanent marker, a pair of scissors, you know.  Several times since she’s passed, I have felt like I had a guardian angel looking over me, looking over you.  I have no doubt she’s watching you grow up and cracking up that I’m pregnant again.  I can see her sitting up in heaven, playing fetch with Bizzy, drinking strawberry daiquiris (because she couldn’t handle tequila) and saying, “Atta boy, Tony” when she saw me panic as I saw that plus on the pregnancy test.  I might have to name this next baby Sally, or at least call him/her that.

One of her last texts to me said that she was sorry I was still hugging the toilet, to put my tootsies up and let Tony the tiger wait on my every need.  I loved that woman.  I was devastated when I dropped my second phone in the toilet for a lot of reasons.  The main reason was it held something precious…my texts from Jones.

Jones taught me a lot about life.  Which is pretty remarkable for someone who was technically dying for most of the time I knew her.  I can’t quit missing her, and I won’t ever quit.  I can’t stop picking up the phone to text or call her, even a year and a half later.  I still have trouble walking by her classroom.  I tore off her name on the copy box in the teacher’s lounge, because I couldn’t stand to be reminded that she wasn’t there. Don’t wait to start living.  Live from the beginning.  Live a life that draws people to you.  Don’t worry about what people think of you.  Don’t live cautiously, live recklessly.

I have been really terrible about keeping in touch with her family.  I’m embarrassed to say that it’s been a year and a half since I took Exit 96A.  The last time I did, I went to drop off some food and a gift card basket filled with popcorn and beer from the staff at our school.  That’s what she would have wanted for her family. I sat at that familar kitchen table and I felt empty.  I looked at Lance’s red-rimmed eyes, and I felt broken.  For him, for her entire family, for anyone that ever knew her…I felt broken.   I’m embarrassed to say that both Christmases since, I’ve had a card for the family, but I can’t figure out how to address it- The Jones Family or Lance, Taylor, and Kassie Jones.  It just seems incomplete.  I know that I can’t imagine the void that they experience just based on the void I feel.

I hope you have an Exit 96A in your life.  Someone that takes how you think, and completely challenges it.  Someone that no matter her age, understands you, your quirks, your passion, and your desire to change the world.  Someone that will bend over backwards for you, and at the same time will be the first one to tell you when you’re being a drama queen.  Someone who isn’t afraid to wear a tie-dye karate uniform, and someone who rocks it.  Someone who lives, no matter what she’s dealing with.  Live, sweet girl, live.

I promise to write soon on all of your recent adventures, but for today, just know that 96A is the most important exit on that interstate.

I love you,

Your mom.