We (Hap & Nan Kindem) met Jamie where Paul also met Jamie for the first time in Queretaro, Mexico, at Brian and Cinthia’s wedding. At the wedding reception Hap danced with Jamie while Paul was dancing with Nan. Before Paul rescued her from her future father-in-law’s wild gyrations, Jamie had already improvised and was dancing back in time with a baby boomer.
On a family skiing trip to West Virginia, Jamie and Paul rode with us through increasingly dense snow for five and one half hours with our 100 pound labradoodle, Mulligan, resting his head, and frequently half his body, on Jamie’s lap in the back seat. Crowded by a large dog in a confined space, Jamie improvised and never complained, helping to keep everybody, including the dog, happy.
When Jamie moved to Durham, NC, to be with Paul she improvised. She adapted to Southern Culture at the same time that she encouraged her family to follow her from further North and South. She gave up her sales job in New York and eventually found work at an exceptional company, SAS in Cary, NC. If the various positions she held throughout her successful, if all too short, career were not always perfect, she improvised and made them better. She made everyone around her better, her family as well as her co-workers. She was a problem solver at work and at home. She could make bosom buddies of strangers and strange bedfellows. Her instrument was her personality, which always played beautiful music and could resolve almost any problem and perfectly fit almost any occasion or situation. We miss seeing that phenomenal instrument and hearing that exquisite tune greatly. We are all trying to make up for the absence of Jamie in our lives, but we are also following Jamie’s lead. We are improvising as best we can.
– Hap & Nancy Kindem
Our (Stacey & Tom Kindem) story about Jamie starts at the very beginning. It isn’t a story that elicits excitement. However, it is one of those moments you keep going back to over and over again. It was during Jamie’s first and last vacation to Amy Belle Lake and our last vacation there as an entire family over the Fourth of July weekend in 2007. Prior to meeting Jamie, we knew very little about her. All we knew is that Paul & Jamie had met two months previous at a wedding in Mexico and had already spent a week in London together. We knew it was serious if she was coming to spend a week with all of us in tight quarters. And by tight quarters, I truly mean, tight quarters. Most people would have been intimidated by meeting the entire family. But Jamie wasn’t. Or at least she didn’t let it show. She showed up with two huge desserts from NYC. How she managed to get through the TSA scanners I’ll never know. Paul had prepared her well. The one sure way to get into the Kindems’ good graces was through food.
What I remember most about that week is how quickly she fit into the family. It was as though the role had been waiting just for Jamie. The shift was seamless. We went from a family waiting for Paul to find the perfect girl. To a family complete. The week was full of many events. Starting with daily trips into the lake, visiting the Miller Brewery Tour, and an art museum in the heart of Milwaukee. Each day ended by us gathering around the dinner table eating fabulous meals followed by drinks around the Kindem boy’s traditional camp fire. Continue Reading →
My (Pete) favorite story of all time was the night that Paul and Jamie came and spent the evening at our house. We ate a fantastic meal and shared some fun, lively, and loud conversation. After dinner we cranked the tunes and the four of us danced our booty’s off. We danced so hard that Paul and I were sweating buckets and grinning ear to ear. If you look up “trip the light fantastic” in the dictionary there is a picture of the four of us with socks and no shoes dancing our fool butts off. I am sure we were listening to the Party Channel on XM or satellite. I can’t remember an evening of more spontaneous fun and feeling so comfortable acting like a complete nut. She helped all of us live louder and fuller.
– Pete Kindem
One of my (Aunt Holly – On the left w/ John) first memories of Jamie was when she was a baby and would squeal with joy as her daddy spun her around up in the air. She showed no fear even then, a hint of her adventurous spirit.
When we visited in PA over many Thanksgivings when she was a little girl she always greeted us with a huge smile and hugs, so happy to see us and so welcoming. I remember all the cousins playing football together each year too. Jamie was quick and competitive and they shared lots of laughs trying to best each other.
She had such a big infectious laugh. She laughed often and was so fun to be with.
Even when she was hugely pregnant with the twins she kept her sense of humor. I remember her at her baby shower, and at Kiersten’s baby shower shortly thereafter, not complaining, even though we knew she had to be very uncomfortable, but instead joking, laughing and sharing her infectious joy. And at the first “baby
picnic”, a designated time to get the big and littlest cousins together, pregnant with Reagan, taking turns with Paul getting up and down being mom to the twins, we knew she was tired but even so she was lovely and graceful. She was always a joy to be around.
– Holly FitzGerald
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