Mary Bess Whidden
You're friends on Facebook
Works at University of New Mexico and Professor Emerita of English
Studied Shakespeare at University of texas austin
Lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico
9/29/12, 7:56 PM
Sandra
UT is playing on TV which reminded me to come and look you up on Facebook. My facebook page can be a crazed tarbaby. My peaceful interface is here: http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com
2012 passed, and nearly five more years. Then I was at a gathering with Mary Bess, and she was asking about what exciting and exotic things Holly was doing, living in northern New Mexico. I wrote this:
1/29/17, 9:05 PM
Sandra
Here's were the Wild Holly Dodd is working. It looks like a very beautiful, high-class House of Woo.
They sell singing bowls, and it costs $50 a head for the cave tour.
(There was a photo with this, at the time, of the dining room there.)
originnewmexico.com
Origin provides nourishment, stewardship, community and space for personal and group expression within a 145-acre guest resort in the high desert of northern New Mexico.
originnewmexico.com
Sandra
Her Espanola yoga teacher (who lives in Taos) was leading cave tours, and when she heard that the owner wanted to hire someone to be a receptionist and figure out all the problems with their bookkeeping and correspondence backlog, to do billing and learn to do cave tours, the yoga teacher recommended Holly, and there it is. Real money, but not real benefits yet.
Sandra
But they trust her with keys and accounts and money and passwords, and that doesn't surprise me beause she's competent and trustworthy. And she's kinda cute.
Glad to see you today!
She didn't see that, either, for not yet being on messenger, but I had sent it merrily out, and didn't check back.
12/12/18, 12:39 PM
Mary Bess Whidden just joined Messenger! Be the first to send a welcome message or sticker.12/13/18, 10:42 AM
Sandra
Facebook says you just joined messenger.
My husband ignores messages on facebook. Some people do.
Now you can see what I sent you last year!
Or, perhaps like Holly does, you'll ignore messages anyway.
It's interesting that more methods of contact haven't really made it a guarantee that people will get messages, and it's coming up on being rude to just call someone without prior agreement. (For young people, anyway)
And then another year went by, but I didn't notice, or mind.SEP 28, 2019, 9:05 PM
Sandra
I either saw a fleeting message from you and lost it (it might have been a very old one; my e-mail is messed up), or I dreamed I did.
Either way, I thought it might be worth checking.
I heard Angela had an accident. I hope she's healing, and home.
SEP 29, 2019, 8:13 PM
Mary Bess:
Thank you, Sandra. Broken collar bone and ten fractured ribs with pain. She should leave therapy place, not a bad situation, in about a week. She will be grateful for your concern, as am I. I miss your updates on Keith but am relieved they aren’t needed and have been replaced by peaceful photos of play with grandchildren.
Sandra
I didn't know the injuries were so... numerous, and in such moving parts. I think a broken leg is a better deal than collar bone and most of the ribs. YIKES.
Just lately the stress came to me, about Keith's survival ordeal.
When it was happening, I was all efficient business.
I've had a delayed reaction, but I'll be okay.
I wanted to say it might happen for you, too. I didn't expect it.
Didn't know it was a thang.
Mary Bess:
You are good to think of that. You were strong and clear-thinking for a lonnng time for such a strong and suddenly bestuck man.
Sandra
He handled it all better than I expected. I still don't let him drive his big pickup. He drives our smallest car, only in daylight, but he politely goes along with that.
I hope things go as well as they can for Angela and you, for the regular routines and requirements of what you were used to before.
Mary Bess:
Thank you so. To spite the world which reminds us that we are old, we persist, thanks to friends such as you. (Your grandkids pictures give me much pleasure.)
Sandra
I'm very glad to know you.
There will be two more grandkids coming along.
Two, or twelve (not counting Holly, who is off to Austin (on the way back, by now) with her boyfriend who is 20 years old.
She'll be 28 in a month, and this boy can't go to the karaoke bar with her.
Mary Bess:
Congratulations to all of us!
Sandra
When Ashlee announced their #2 (that's Marty's wife), I wrote: I have done math. I have done a graph. I have projected into the future. By 2030, I think we will have 14 grandchildren. Check my figures. Babies born in 2017 (Ivan) 2018 (Kirby) 2019 (Tommy) 2020 (Ivan-sibling) and so on... I think my prediction will be marred if Holly joins in.
Sandra
No one has pointed out I didn't count Devyn.
If they do, I plan to say that for statistical cleanliness, I have eliminated outliers—her and any baby that might be born in 2040.
Mary Bess:
You are and have always been a wizard. Fourteen! A lot of names and busy brains.
Sandra
It's science, I think. Math. That's all.
I might go quiet now. Tired. Thanks for the update and the chat.
Good night!
Mary Bess:
Night night and love to all.
Friday night, November 22, Holly's boyfriend's 21st birthday, I saw a couple of notes on Facebook addressed to Mary Bess in ways that people address the dead, there. I finally found a note saying she had passed away of illness, on Thursday night.
There was a party at the McPherson compound in Corrales, on November 9, and Angela came, but not Mary Bess, though this had appeared on the event page:
It is very interesting that Facebook allows us to continue to leave messages for people after they cease to read them. I like it.
Mary Bess was a friend of Dave McPherson's, in my life, but I was glad to know her and to see her so often, over the years, almost always in Corrales at the McPhersons' house(s) —the last couple of times at the new casita).
