CHAPTER 1
March 2003
I feel compelled to go through Tammy's things over andover again, to touch and smell the things she lived in and with.Each object, whether it's an earring or a book or a sweater,still holds the essence of her, and I want to hold her essencejust a little while longer. I don't want time to steal it from me.
Here is one of her trophies—Lokahi Canoe Club, MostInspirational Crew, 1987. She was a senior at the Universityof Hawaii that year. She and Terri were seniors in highschool when we moved to Hawaii. Wayne (their dad and myhusband) worked for the US Department of Agriculture, andin those days, if he wanted a promotion, he had to accepta transfer every couple of years or so. By the time Tammyand Terri graduated, they had attended three different highschools in three states. Their older sister, Cindy, was tired ofmoving when Wayne transferred to Honolulu, so she stayedbehind in San Antonio, Texas, to work on her bachelor'sdegree at the university there.
Though most of the kids in the Ts' classes at McKinleyHigh in Waikiki were very short Orientals and the Ts werevery tall—nearly six feet tall—Tammy and Terri got alongjust fine. Their buddies called them the Redman Trees andquickly introduced them to island ways. For example, theTs played clarinet in the marching band, and after footballgames, everybody went for saimin instead of hamburgers orhot dogs. And everybody hung out at the beach instead offast-food joints. In short order, both girls learned to bodysurfand to paddle an outrigger canoe.
Terri and Tam are mirror-image identical twins, so Terri,the oldest by one whole minute, is left-handed, while Tammywas right-handed. They loathed being referred to as thetwins, but they didn't mind at all being called the Ts. Eachstruggled to find and maintain her own identity, separate fromthe other, yet they both liked the same things, had the samefriends, and wanted to do the same things at the same time.Maintaining the peace could get a bit tricky at times.
When they were babies, Terri and Tam seemed to needto touch each other before they could go to sleep. They bothslept in the same crib, crossways instead of lengthwise.Later, they learned to sleep in separate cribs, but they stillneeded to be able to see each other before they could relax.By the time they earned their bachelor's degrees, they weredetermined to finally go their separate ways.
Here's a second-place trophy for the Brookwood Run10K in 1993. Tam lived in Birmingham, Alabama, then. Shehad come to Albuquerque from Hawaii to attend graduateschool at the University of New Mexico. When her programwas downsized, she transferred to the University of Alabamaat Birmingham, where she earned her PhD in microbiology in1995.
Here are several trophies and medals from herBirmingham days. This one is a participation medal for amarathon. I didn't know she ever ran a marathon.
The medals are wrapped in a red T-shirt she got forparticipating in a 10K run in Hawaii in 1983. Oh, and here,underneath several pairs of shorts, is a small chess set withquartz chess pieces. I had no idea she played chess. Shemust have learned in Birmingham.
At the very bottom of the box, there are a couple ofChristmas tree ornaments. One is a tiny wooden lobster, andthe other is a tiny mandolin. Nothing ordinary for my Tammy!
There are yet more boxes. Those with clothing haveother things tucked in them too. This one has a small wickerbox with a lid on it. The box is about four inches across,and inside there are all sorts of odds and ends—a pair ofearrings made to look like tiny evergreen wreaths, anotherpair of small round glass Christmas tree ornament earrings,a bottle-cap opener, a small Swiss Army knife, a motleyassortment of key rings, and a tiny pair of scissors.
There are boxes and boxes of papers, each with folderslabeled and filed alphabetically. Most of them are aboutthings I've never heard of before, probably information shecollected while she was in graduate school. And then thereare the files about cancer. I don't want to look at those. I putthe lid back on the box and put it away.
Tammy has an eclectic collection of books: JamesMichener's Hawaii, several books by Arthur Clarke andRobert Heinlein, and even a collection of Shakespeare'sworks. Here's Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning,the National Geographic Photography Field Guide, Cats ofthe World, and All I Need to Know I Learned from My Cat.My curious daughter pursued information about all sorts ofthings, it seems.
All these CDs, and to think these are what's left aftershe sold most of her collection to get some much-neededcash. I remember this one by Mary Chapin Carpenter. Tam'sfavorite track was "The Bug", especially the part that said"Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes You're theBug".
CHAPTER 2
Our family scattered across the country once all three ofour daughters were grown. Tammy started graduate schoolat the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Terri wentto graduate school at the University of Miami in Florida,and their older sister, Cindy, lived with her husband andtwo young daughters in San Antonio, Texas. Wayne andI lived in Hawaii. When he retired from the US Departmentof Agriculture in 1987, we moved to Albuquerque to be nearour parents and siblings in Arizona and still be within drivingdistance of our girls.
A year after our move, Tammy transferred to theUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham to finish her PhD inmicrobiology. Meanwhile, within a couple of years, both Terriand Cindy and her family had moved to Albuquerque.
After she finished her PhD, Tammy continued workingas a postdoctoral fellow in Birmingham. Though she workedlong hours, she was diligent about keeping up with what wasgoing on with the rest of the family and letting us know whatwas going on with her.
"Hey, Terri," she said during one of her regular phonecalls. "I've been thinking about this a lot lately. With all themoney I spend on phone calls and trips home to see youguys, I think it would be much cheaper and better all aroundfor me if I just move back to Albuquerque. I shouldn't haveany trouble finding a job there. What do you think?"
The year was 1997.
Overjoyed, Terri bought an old—over fifty-year-old—housenear the University of New Mexico campus for her and Tamto share. Tammy paid rent, but as far as each of them wasconcerned, the house belonged to them both.
The house had been a rental for years, and it wasrun-down, but it was in one of those old-fashionedneighborhoods where everybody knew everybody else. Allthe neighbors got together for picnics in the park down thestreet on the Fourth of July. They exchanged small gifts atChristmastime. They brought food if someone was sick. Andthey were seldom too busy to stop and chat.
Terri and Tammy loved the neighborhood, and they lovedthe old house.
They painted and repaired and updated it until it wastheir own. They turned the badly neglected yard into a greenrefuge.
They both loved plants in general and gardening inparticular, and their yard showed it. They trimmed and fedand coddled the row of ancient rosebushes along one side oftheir front yard. They hauled out trash, and they cut down thedead cottonwood tree in the backyard. They contoured andthey planted. One side of the backyard had apparently beena vegetable garden, so they cleaned it out and planted theirvegetables there. But not in neat straight rows—that wouldbe too regimented, too ordinary...
