See You in My Dreams....

Today’s email brought me the sad though not unexpected news that Irene Waters has died. She had been diagnosed with cancer about a year ago and, although too ill to attend the elementary school kids’ Christmas Pageant at the Community Center last month, she was honored at the event with a plaque recognizing her long service to Point Roberts.

And long and thorough it was. I knew Irene first about a dozen years ago when we were making the Community Quilt that now hangs in the entry hall outside the P.R. library. She was enormously helpful in obtaining and explaining the historic photographic images upon which we based the individual blocks. An indomitable person, Irene worked with us all to see that project through. She continued to work with the quilting group on a couple of other projects but once we were well on our way she moved on to her many other activities.

I would see her now and then around the Point and she always had a good word, although often an acerbic one, for whatever was the news of the day. I once ran into her one early winter day down at the Peace Arch Mall and she commented, wryly, “Well, everyone has to get off the Point once in awhile,” although neither one of us, I thought at the time, felt this was the place where we ought to be doing our ‘getting off the Point.’ But there we were, anyway, as she pointed out.

She has left a long legacy and a thick scrapbook of memories. We’ll be seeing Irene for a long time in our minds and in our community, sometimes wondering, sometimes knowing ‘what Irene would think of this.’ But for right now, it is “Goodnight Irene.” Hers was a life lived intensely, with focus, with concentration, and with results. A very good job, I’d think.