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Hi there,

I found your site after I saw a notification on Facebook that some high school classmates were attending a run in Jamie’s honor. I hadn’t thought of her in ages but a quick google search brought me here. Let me first extend my condolences. I am so very sorry for your loss. I barely new Jamie. If you’d asked her I doubt she would have remembered my name. She was a few years ahead of me in school. At T/E she was a cool 8th grader and at Conestoga she was a popular senior. I knew of her more than anything. We met in photography class in the autumn of 1994. I was a sophomore girl who was just returning to school after having been treated for cancer for the past 18 mos. It was a scary time for me. Starting high school is tough enough and I was doing it a year later than the rest of my class and after a year and a half of chemo and radiation and surgeries. I remember coming back to school and finding friendships had changed and cliques had shifted. I’d known many of my classmates since nursery school and all of sudden they seemed like strangers. Anyway, that’s a bit of back story to explain how nervous I was fall semester that year. Photography was my elective and the only name I even recognized was Jamie’s. Oh I was terrified. The only person I vaguely knew was a super cool soccer and lacrosse playing senior girl. I don’t 100% remember how we started talking – I think maybe she had to have surgery on her knee or something, regardless we started talking. We chatted in class and she’d smile at me in the halls and was just her nice and kind bubbly self. I wish I had something more to say, some concrete memory to share. She was just being herself and that meant so much to a shy, scared and slightly out of place me. I’ve always remembered that.

My best to all of the O’Briens and Kindems,
Ryan Carlton, Conestoga Class of 1997.
Ryan.carlton@gmail.com

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As we mentioned in the July update, we celebrated Reagan’s first birthday on August 10th, the anniversary of the day she came home from the hospital. The O’Brien-Kindem families celebrated by cooking kabobs on the grill, playing in the backyard or in Paul’s two playrooms, and Reagan enjoyed her first cake. Reagan was the star of the show as she opened her presents, with the help of her brother, sister, and cousins. Reagan received many great gifts but her favorite was a purple car given to her from her aunt Stacey and uncle Tom. Reagan stepped into the car the moment daddy finished assembling it and she showed an immediate look of determination and delight as she zoomed around the house. John and Larkin demanded their turns on the car as well, but they were kind enough to allow Reagan to sit on their laps.

On August 27th, the SAS inside sales team (Jamie’s old department and colleagues) hosted an event in honor of Jamie and her children. The goal of the event was to spend time with the Kindem-O’Brien families, especially ‘the adorables,’ but also to raise money for the fund set up for John, Larkin, and Reagan. It was a highly successful event, and Paul and the family were deeply touched by this thoughtful gesture. The event included an organized corn hole tournament (72 participants – 36 teams), a raffle drawing for prizes where John, Larkin, and Reagan picked the winning tickets, and many good conversations. The most entertaining prize was a $100 gift certificate to Adam & Eve. A young woman won the prize which brought much muttering and laughter throughout the crowd. Paul and Pete were teammates in the corn hole tournament and made it to the final game, but were outmatched by two of SAS’s finest bag throwers. John, Larkin, and Reagan enjoyed practicing their bean bag tosses, eating off other people’s plates, playing skeet-ball, and meeting many new people. Continue Reading →