May Passes On

May, Jim's Mom, died this morning in her sleep at 4:20.  It was a good death, there was an end to the pain and she was ready.
One of the interesting things about her is that we don't know how old she was.  She immigrated from Winnipeg as a child and was later naturalized.  Somehow, she ended up with two birth certificates, one for 1914 and one for 1917.  Jim was talking to the daughters of Winn, one of May's sisters, yesterday, and they said Winn always referred to May as "the baby."  May always referred to Winn as "the baby."  So, we just don't know.
This is Jim with May when he was little.

 

After the family moved to Washington, May worked as a teacher at a school for delinquent boys in what would later become Luther Burbank Park on Mercer Island.  After leaving teaching, she sold real estate for John L. Scott.  This was taken in 1979.

 

Jim's Dad died in 2002.  We honestly didn't think May would last a year after his death.  But she did, the woman was a trouper.  She lived alone until just after Thanksgiving, 2011.  By that point all the cartilage in her right knee was gone, and driving was no longer an option.  Faced with choosing between live in help and assisted living, she chose the latter.  Here she is in Wyatt House at 98 (or 95).

 

May's memory got a little soft at the end, but she was the reigning Scrabble champ of Wyatt House.  Every day she did the crossword puzzle in the paper.  May had a good run, and she'll be missed.