Fond Memories of Linda
- Community
- Announcements
- Obituaries
Author: Sharon Sullivan
Released 5 December 2005
When Linda got braces we were laughing about the fact that she couldn’t chew
because her mouth was so sore. She went around for a month with these big hunks
of wax on her teeth so the wires wouldn’t cut her mouth inside. Every time she
would smile, all I could see were these big green and blue blobs of wax all over
her teeth. Since I was so much vainer than Linda, I told her I would love to
have braces, but I didn’t want them to show. After she had retired, I received
an advertisement that she had cut out of the paper for braces that were
invisible. That Linda, even a year later, she remembered me and my vanity.
I remember one time I came to visit Linda. I loved that pink Naugahyde
vibrating chair in her living room. I lay in that thing all weekend long, and I
know I vibrated off a good ten pounds. Gads, it was ugly, but I sure did love
it. We even went looking for one like it for me, but couldn’t find anything.
That same weekend, as I was leaving, I had commented during my visit about how I
loved her 10 foot tall silk ficus tree with the little twinkly lights on it. I
had already started the care and was backing out of the driveway so to travel
back to Bakersfield when Linda comes running down the stairs with this huge silk
tree in front of her, the lights dragging behind. She said, “here take this, it
will look better in your house than it does in mine.” I have that tree in the
corner of my living room. Every time I turn on the lights, I think of Linda
running down the stairs, dragging that big tree that was twice as big as she
was.
One weekend, they were having this killer sale at Nordstrom Rack in Redondo
Beach. She came to work the next week with three dresses that she thought I
would love. They all fit perfectly.
Linda and I were always sharing verses in the Bible that were pertinent for
whatever we were going through. She was my best friend when it came to sharing
our Love of the Lord. I remember when she told me she had cancer. I cried more
that day than she did. She had a peace about dying. We talked a lot about her
treatment, and how to pray. We would go out on the balcony here at work, and
start out the day with a few words to get us going. She was a trooper. She
would come in some days and I knew she didn’t feel well. She didn’t always have
time to put on her makeup. I told her one day, “gads, girlfriend, go put on
some makeup.” She came back with her makeup intact, lipstick on, and her
“Blinkers” (mascara, as she called her made-up eyes). She was stunning.
The most memorable thing about Linda that we all recall here at the health
department was Linda’s uncanny memory for detail. You could mention something
in passing that would seem insignificant to so many, and she would come back
months later and ask you how it was going. She never forgot anything that was
important to someone else, no matter how trivial you might think it had been.
She was the most compassionate, sincere, God loving woman I have ever met. I
loved her so much.
I know God has a special place for people like Linda. She didn’t have a mean
bone in her body. Probably the one thing I remember that stands out the most
significantly about Linda was her laugh. She would start laughing and she
couldn’t stop. I can’t tell you how many times we would laugh till we cried.
I ran across a saying written by Orison Swett Marden. It goes something like
this: “Joyfulness keeps the heart and face young. A good laugh makes us better
friends with ourselves and everybody around us.” Linda was truly a good friend.
Sharon Sullivan