Joyce Ellen Evans
I met Joyce for the first time at the Marysville Starbucks, just off the highway. Jim and I were on a return trip from visiting my family in Vancouver. She wore a flowery shirt, a heavy pink lanyard of keys around her neck and had a twinkle in her eye as she greeted her son, the first time I'd ever heard anyone call him "Jimmy." She insisted on paying for our drinks but didn't drink her coffee, preferring to wait until it cooled and she and Jimmy began an extensive conversation about the state of her Samsung cellphone.I learned some fundamental things about Joyce in that first meeting:
- She avoided extremes of temperature
- She was not a fan of technology
- She never lost her keys
- She was incredibly generous
- She dearly loved her son
Over the years of knowing her, I pieced together parts of her life, her early life in Marysville working at a bank, the pride she took in her work, her marriage to "The Colonel" and her admiration of him, but what she most liked to talk about was her time as a mother.I recognized some similarities we shared – that, like me, she was essentially a single mother, with The Colonel often absent, it was up to her to manage the household, lively with active kids, dogs, cats, and snakes, usually in far-flung locations. She was in charge of moving the entire entourage every 18 months to yet another unfamiliar destination.Despite the constant stress and uncertainty of that era, those times were her favorite topics of conversation. It would be easy to attribute the frequency of her stories to a kind of trauma she experienced during all those moves, but I suspect everyone in the room knows that she spoke of those times so frequently because her mother-years were some of the pinnacle moments of her life and for that, I always admired her.Over the last couple of years, I was lucky enough to be a frequent visitor in her life, driving her to the places she needed to go, dropping off rotisserie chickens, calming her in moments of stress. She shared with me her love of the Mariners, listening to every game on AM radio and I teased her whenever the Blue Jays played with a "Go Jays!" text. She regaled me with tales of her beloved James Paxton, the Canadian Mariner's pitcher, assuming that I too must love him given our shared nationality. She never failed to tell me about the maple trees planted within the Mariner's stadium in honor of his no-hitter this past summer. She was always trying to stuff $20 bills into my hand to cover some minor expense, or helping to wash windows at our firehouse. I learned invaluable tips from Joyce, particularly in the art of stain removal which took my skills in that department to a whole new level.One of my fondest memories will be the day I painted windows as she sat nearby regaling me with stories of her childhood in Marysville, the piano lessons, her mother's arthritic hands, her father's old car, a beautiful doll she once owned. That day, I saw the young, beautiful girl she was, the giggles, the happy smile, the innocence. I think that young girl remained a large part of who she was, and that was her charm.The world often seemed to overwhelm that young girl and I wonder if perhaps her stories became a coping mechanism, a way of remaining in a simpler time. As a story-teller myself, I value the power of our stories to make sense of our worlds.I am going to miss those giggles and those lit up eyes when presented with something she loved, be it a tiny flashlight, a kind gesture or a day with her children and grandchildren. I will never forget that way she would deconstruct a sandwich before eating it. Joyce's way in the world reminded us to take pleasure in the little moments, to reduce things to their simplest elements, to find solace in our stories, to be generous to a fault and to love hard the people nearest and dearest to us. .