Hello everyone.
I have struggled with the idea of telling Joey’s life story today, but after weeks of hearing what she has meant to so many people, and after listening to all of you here today, I realize that each of you has known Joey at one particular time in her life or another, only a few of us has known her all her life and even then, even family members don’t remember or even knew of some to the chapters in Joey’s life. She was the accumulation of all her life events, they all contributed to the woman we mourn today. And so, I want you all to know what her whole life was like, and how it shaped her into the wonderful person we know today. Awful things happen in our lives, but we have choices. Let them take us down, or grow and overcome and move on. Joey could teach us all how to make the most of any life.
My father, Malcolm was one of seven, 5 boys and 2 girls, born between 1909 and 1925, all who survived to adulthood to marry and then after the war….. start their families. Who knows what instilled in them such a sense of family that all but one remained in the Seattle area, and in their hearts they all stayed close to each other?
Three of them took it to an extreme……… they bought houses within 3 blocks of each other in Seattle’s Lakewood neighborhood near Seward Park.
Malcolm, Wayne and Helen produced 11 of the 19 children born among all seven of them, and all but one lived to turn at least 38. There are 5 gone now, including Joey. But we 11…… we who grew up so close to each other..........went to the same elementary, Jr. Hi and High School, some to the same college...... we grew up in each others houses,,,,, at a time when mom's didn't think they had to worry about where their kids were all day, and that kid on a bike ruled the world. This was the 50's after all............
We 11 were born between 1944 and 1957……a span of 13 years......... And three were born in the same year, 1949, Joey, Christine and Rex. One from each family. You will see one photo of them as babies…….
This is the extended family Joey was born into. For Joey and I, it was like having 5 more sisters and 4 brothers………….. Our lives intertwined by location and DNA………
So as you look at the slide show we will show you, you will see Joey and I together as children……. and …… with a lot of other kids, mostly our cousins, ……these brother / sister / cousins of ours…
Uncle Tom's kids, Maureen, Russ, and Dolly lived in Edmonds………. And Uncle Gene's son Donny lived in West Seattle. Uncle Howard's kids were our California cousins, much too far away to bond with as children, but we are working on that now…Their mother, our aunt Ellen, is here with us to celebrate Joey's life as is our Uncle Tom......... now the matriarch and patriarch of this Powell and Hackett family. This is quite a blessing.
Until Joey was 12, life was good. Then Daddy died suddenly and our life changed forever.
Mom struggled to hold things together and although I think there were offers of help from Dad's family, she chooses to go it alone. We managed, but Mom struggled with the loss of her husband, with depression, and at a time when every adult drank, a lot sometimes.....none of the Powell’s or Hackett’s could be called alcoholics.... but it was easy for Mom to slide down the slippery slope.
I married Mike the year Joey graduated from Franklin High School, and she went on to become a medical transcriber…
In 1967, right after I found out I was pregnant, Joey was also told the same thing. The difference was that, that father to be skipped town the day after she told him about a baby.
Six weeks after my son was born, Joey gave birth and gave her healthy baby boy up for adoption……. It broke her heart………. even though she knew she was making the right decision……… it didn't make it any easier. She clung to the fact that she gave him life and expected that he would have a much better life than anything she could give him.
Two years later she was madly in love with Edward and she expected to spend the rest of her life with him. They made plans to marry after he finished a Coast Guard Reserve tour of duty
Three weeks before he was to return home, he shot and killed himself.
Now this was 1971. There was a huge drug culture and in her grief, Joey could have been sucked right in……… Instead she attended a Transendental Meditation meeting and her life took another path. …………..
She continued to work and attend classes in TM. She traveled to Spain and Switzerland to study TM where she met Nell, I think her first friend for life. Then she was asked to manage a TM center in New Zealand and off she went……………. Where she lived for five years.
She fell in love……….and nearly married there, but in the end the pull of home was stronger; and she didn't want to live in New Zealand the rest of her life. She came home when Mom became very ill, and stayed the rest of her life.
She worked and continued to be active in TM where she met her first husband, Jeff. They married in 1979. In the three years they were married she had a miscarriage…Filed for personal bankruptcy with Jeff … and then moved to Minneapolis where he wanted to manage a TM center. She became pregnant again and discovered that Jeff though this was bad timing and did not want her to have the baby. We brought her home and a few months later she delivered a baby boy at seven months. He did not live.
Joey's divorce was finalized quickly. She moved on, picked up the pieces and put her life back together, and she started working for Nordstrom.
In 1985 she bought a house in West Seattle and because of Mom's poor health, she moved in with Joey……Joey cared for her for eleven years.
In 1987 Ron Brothers entered her life. Bells, Whistles, Fireworks………. You name it they went off…………… They were married in July of 1988.
They merged a family of four together… Joey and Mom and Ron and his son, Ron Jr. age 15 moved into the house in Kent after the wedding. They made it work…………………
She was happy/ We called him Saint Ron
In 1996, while mom was hospitalized and not expected to live, Joey received a letter.
The son she had given up for adoption was looking for her………… was she interested in meeting him.?????????????
Three days before mom died, Joey met Dwynn Nyquist. One door was about to close…. and yet another one opened.
Dwynn wasn't looking for another Mom or another family. He was 27 and perfectly happy with the parents he had. But he was curious………….. And this was the start of a wonderful friendship between the two of them………
At the same time Ron Jr. was about to marry and give her grandchildren, Dwynn married too and shared with Joey his life with his wife and two sons.
Before I had three grandchildren, she had four…………. And one was a girl. She was over the moon. !!!!!
But I am getting ahead of myself… because, back up….. to three months after Mom died in 1996, Joey was diagnosed with Breast Cancer.
She fought this disease. Continuing to work, she had Chemo, surgery, more chemo, and more surgery. We all should know what a battle that is………… She endured pain and discomfort all the while trying to maintain a career with Nordstrom, her own family, and her connection to all her friends and extended family. She chose to embrace the Joy in her life and focused on her family, her friends, and her dolls.............
While recovering from surgery, Joey took a class and made dolls, including a Gilda Radner doll for a Gilda's Club fundraiser, and then she created “Tara”, a Friend for Life.
From vintage linens she made the skirt and shawl and tied an old handkerchief around her bald head, She added an old button and some pretty ribbon and when she returned to work, she took her along with her. Friends and co-workers loved her and placed orders. PinkBow Productions was born. She made Faith, with hair, ,,,,,, because you had to have faith that the hair would grow back. It did, and then she was also Cancer Free.
She sold many, many dolls, and donated the profits to the Susan G Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer Research……….. Now known as Susan G Komen for the Cure.
Along the way, I made her a bracelet with letters that spelled Hope, the name of another of her of her dolls. She looked at that and said "we could sell these", and my life immediately took another direction. !!!!!!!!!
We sold them in a few shops and Joey sold lots of them to co-workers at Nordstrom. In early 2003, Nordstrom asked her to make 400 bracelets for a trial run at selling them in a couple of stores. They sold out in a week. They ordered 900 and expanded the placement. And then they asked for 4000 bracelets to be placed nation wide for October, Breast Cancer Awareness month.
As soon as we said yes and started production, Joey was diagnosed with a return of her cancer, this time in her lungs. Metastasized Breast Cancer can not be cured……….. Yet.
She started a new Chemo treatment and we scrambled to complete the bracelet order on time. Friends and family came together to help. We held bead parties. We sourced them out……….. We got them done.
And…we left for the long wished for trip to Paris that had been a dream of Joey's forever.
After returning, and before the end of the year, Joey presented a check for $20,000 to the Komen Foundation. Bring her lifetime donations to over $30,000.
She then retired form Nordstrom after 22 years with them…. And concentrated on her dolls and her health. This continued for another 3 years, her health finally taking its toll. But, she had found a new hobby………… Scrapbooking!!!!!!!!
She continued her fight with Breast cancer as it spread to her liver and ultimately to her brain. Last fall she had surgery to remove a tumor from her brain and six months later, she showed no signs of cancer at the site.
But six weeks later it was back, with a vengeance. June 22 she was told she had only a few months to live.
She started to make plans for an easy transition of life to death for herself and everyone around her.
Who here doesn't know the story of Joey's Rose Garden?? Her neighbor Joni had a little idea born of love for Joey, and look what resulted. The message, give someone you love a gift now, make it count now, not after he or she is gone.
Joey loved that garden for only two weeks, but if it had been for only 2 days, it would have been worth it.
The day she died, the hospice nurse and Joey's physical therapist came to help. His name was Rudy. After making her comfortable, he asked who I was, and after telling him, he said, "Ah, you took her to Ocean Shores so she could return to this beautiful garden. When I visited her the day after you returned, She took me right to the garden to show me how beautiful it was. We sat on the steps overlooking the garden and talked and after a while she told me that she was at peace with her life and it's ending, and that she could just see herself walking down the steps, down the gravel path, across the grass and through the gates of the Arbor.
“Then”, she said, ”she would fly with the Angels”.
So, Mike opened the gates to the Arbor………. And three hours later she was gone.
God bless my sister
She is flying with the angels now.