2003-09-26 - 8:48 p.m.

There’s a clump of daffodils that grows just across the yard; on a summer’s day the beauty of them against the luscious green lawn is breath-taking, if you only take the moment to appreciate it. I’ve sat on the top of these steps with their chipping blue paint a million times, but today I see so many things I never saw before.

There’s a woman in my life who has nurtured me and loved me since those very first days, and yet it took me 25 years to realize just quite how amazing she is. She was born in Canada, 86 years ago in a world so different that I wonder if I can truly fathom just how much has changed.

She watched her husband, their marriage vows just barely taken, go off to World War II. It was only a few months ago that she told me the story, how they were unwed when he was called off to war. She married him before he left, she would not choose to stand by him or not should he return injured or changed, whatever came to him in this war, she would be there to help him through when he returned.

While he was away so many things changed in daily life. It wasn’t like the wars I’ve known, it wasn’t just there in the media, she felt it every day. She went to work in the shipyards, “Rosy the Riveter”. She came home to Falmouth at night after a hard day of work to a home she’d barely yet shared with her husband.

The war ended, he came home in one piece, and they truly began their life together. They raised four children, all amazing people in their own rights. It was a time when society had not yet grown to accept the differences of people, when those who were handicapped were often segregated from society, institutionalized. When she learned that her first child was mentally handicapped, however, she refused to give in to the societal “norm”. I can only imagine the struggles of a mother, facing the tragedy of a child with handicap and fighting to give her a normal life in a time that just wasn’t done.

With a small group of like-minded mothers she helped form the basis of Friends of Retarded, an organization that would later be the foundation of other programs for the handicapped in Maine. She fought for the rights of her child, and for so many people with handicaps. What she helped to start will long be remembered here, though most will never realize just how much she struggled to bring about such change.

The children had grown, and the first of the grandchildren played at the bottom of those steps with the chipping blue paint, not far from those daffodils, when that man she pledged her love to before he went off to war, went home for good. She buried him close to the home they had shared and she held her head up high and went on with life. She has watched her children flourish, watched her grandchildren grow. She has given countless hours to countless numbers of causes, giving more of herself than most people could comprehend. Habitat for Humanity, AARP and so many other organizations, have known the pleasure of her service. So many lives she has touched in her 86 years. So many lives she still touches.

May you look at the daffodils of your life, see them for all their beauty, appreciate them before the cold of winter starts to whither their leaves. May you not wait and rush in those cool days of fall to savor the beauty, as the frost threatens to steal it away with every nightfall. May you cherish the amazing splendor of those flowers in your life and not let the moments slip so far that you fail to see what is there before the blanket of winter snow takes them away.

Written in love and respect for one of the most amazing people I’ll ever know, Frances Carr. I’m sorry I waited until the crisp days of autumn to see all you are and how much you mean to me