I haven’t been able to process this before now, but when I looked at the calendar today it said "mail Miko's birthday card".
Miko and Tessie moved in
next door to me 5 years ago August. She was so enamored with my dog she
requested the apartment next door rather than the one they had ready for her
across the way. I remember the first evening I actually spoke to
her – it was my birthday 2016. We were both just getting home from
work. We stood outside our apartments chatting in the August heat for
about 45 minutes when she decided she needed to drive me to Dairy Queen since
it happened to be my birthday. No time for dinner – just birthday ice
cream. This was the first time I experienced being kidnapped by Miko, but
it was not the last.
I soon learned that
anytime you went shopping with Miko, you needed to block out the entire
afternoon/evening – it was never an easy in and out. Shopping with Miko
was a gold-medal Olympic event. She looked at and analyzed
everything.
I especially remember
the first Christmas tho – we had been at the Big Lots and found these stuffed
showmen that spoke to you when you pinched their hand. She turned them
all on and kept speaking to them and of course a couple dozen snow men started
speaking – and speaking – and speaking, until a clerk , who almost peed herself
laughing – came over to turn them all off. BUT it didn't end there……the
next evening I went back to purchase another of the snowmen for a co-worker,
and who did I find with a cart-full of snowmen? Miko. She decided
she needed to buy one for every one of her relatives in Okinawa. She
left zero on the shelf. I managed to convince her not
everyone back home needed a snowman. Still, I think she purchased 10 of
them. But I wasn’t always there to restrain her – she once came home with
15 African violet plants because they were only $1 each. The Dollar
Store was especially dangerous for her. I don't think she ever left
without buying at least 10 pair of reader glasses. (Which she was constantly
misplacing)
She was always trying to feed me and I'd come home from work and
she's call and say come to dinner. She introduced me to Asian cuisine but could
keep her seaweed to herself! She could not believe I had NEVER had
Raman noodles so that first Christmas she wrapped up a CASE of them for me. She
amazed me at how much she actually could eat – I watched her polish off a double
burger at 5Guys (with everything on it). And outside of a
rabbit I’ve never met anyone who could eat as much spinach as Miko.
If you said you liked
something – she got it for you. I learned to be careful around her. I
once mentioned an apple bar I liked from Trader Joes. The next thing I
know she came back from Trader Joes one day with 5 boxes of apple
bars! If you asked her to pick up ONE of something you would have
to expect at least two. Always a backup. I often thought she thought
she was still buying for 5 children! That was just Miko. She
was generous to a fault.
She moved in with me in
2017 and that’s when I found out she had more clothes then any one person I
ever met. She had a coat for every day- any weather – any color and boots
& shoes to match. Scarves – she had a million of them and the only
person I knew that could actually pull it off year round. I
don’t think I ever saw her in the same outfit twice! It helped that she
worked at QVC – she never missed their employee sales. Once she moved in
with me I was always finding new clothes she would happen to pick up for me as
well– I think she was trying to tell me something....Next to clothes, I
never saw anyone with more supplements - she had them for everything you
could think of and now has me taking more of them as well!
Living with Miko was
never dull. There was the time she ate the dogs kibble thinking it was a
new cereal (that didn't taste that good). Or the time during a snow storm we
had to go out to get Pringles. Or the countless mornings I had to call
her phone because she couldn't find hers.
Shortly after she moved
in with me, she was in a car accident. She called me and I sat at Paoli
hospital while they did scan to be sure she was ok. Even lying in that
hospital bed she was worried about the man who hit her. That was
Miko. It was then – September of 2017 that they detected
“something”. That something turned out to be pancreatic
cancer. I suppose it was luck to have found it out, had she not
had the accident it may have been a much shorter time to have spent with
her. As it was, we had almost 4 years more.
Thru everything – the
operation – the countless chemo’s – the trials – the hair & weight loss –
she never stopped being optimistic, and she never stopped thinking about
everyone else first. Up until a few months before she passed, she was
still driving around seeing people - going to them when she should have been
letting them come to her.
She certainly made an
indelible mark on my life. She definitely got me feeling closer to God. She
helped me to be more patient and giving. I can’t think of Big Lots, Hobby
Lobby, the Dollar Store or 5Guys without thinking of Miko. And I will forever
hear her saying whatchamacallit?
We said our final
good-byes to Miko on August 15th. It was a beautiful
ceremony scripted by Miko. It was a full house. So many
similar stories. So many lives touched. So many hearts
broken.
Miss you fiercely
- Rest in Peace. Happy Birthday!