Jamie and Paul's Love Story

In loving memory of my amazing, beautiful, and intriguing wife Jamie O’Brien Kindem

Our Love Story

May 4, 2007 – Jamie Elizabeth O’Brien and I first met while traveling to Mexico for a wedding. The groom was Jamie’s first cousin and one of my best friends growing up.

I first saw Jamie through a window from outside the dining area of the hotel sitting with some of her family. This moment is forever painted in my mind because I had never seen such beauty. After a number of awkward and slightly forced exchanges (Paul walking over to a large table of people and introducing himself to Jamie, making small talk in the hotel pool, Jamie telling Paul she liked his tie, tracking each other from across the room), we finally met hands on the dance floor of the wedding reception and danced and laughed the night away. When the reception was over, we headed back to the hotel on a bus with my arm wrapped around her tightly and her head on my shoulder. My parents were sitting to our left and her parents were in the seat in front of us, but their constant glances didn’t stop us from showing our immediate love for one another. We spent the rest of that night talking about our past, kissing, and holding each other. The simple touch of her fingers or lips created more energy throughout my body than I thought humanly possible. It goes without saying that that night and the next day were some of the most special hours of my life. Jamie and I had fallen completely in love in less than 48 hours. Jamie wrote in her journal on the trip home from Mexico that she had met her husband-to-be and I told my brother upon returning that I had found the girl I would marry.

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May 2007 to January 2008 – Jamie had just returned to the east coast after living in San Diego for a number of years, and upon coming back to the States from Mexico found out that she had received a job offer from a company in New York City. Jamie and I talked on a daily basis since our return from Mexico, and after accepting this job offer, she said her first week on the job would be training in London. I immediately asked her which week, because I had a previously scheduled work trip to London. It was the same week I was going to be there! That’s when we knew our relationship was meant to be. We spent every night in London together walking the city, searching for the perfect restaurant, enjoying the culture, and most of all, enjoying one another’s touch. I’m not sure a single second went by without our bodies touching.

Although both of us felt we had found our spouse-to-be in Mexico, we didn’t truly know until meeting in London. Our time together in London left us with no doubts. From then on, Jamie and I spoke multiple times a day and traveled on weekends to see one another. Our time was spent mostly in Brooklyn, NY where she was living at the time, but we also visited Long Island, San Diego, Chapel-Hill/Durham, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Annapolis, Jamaica, and Asheville. I obviously cherish our time at all of these places, but the most special to me was Brooklyn and Manhattan. I was born and raised in Chapel Hill, NC and Jamie was born and raised in New York City. I had traveled to many cities in the past, but had never experienced what it’s like to actually live in a large city, especially one like NYC. For the first time, I could envision and experience having everything you need within walking distance, which was very exhilarating. We’d also take the subway to various stops in Manhattan and walk different areas of the city. She showed me the building she and her parents lived in when she was born, the park her mom and dad used to take her to, the old Yankee Stadium, and the walk across Central Park to the American Museum of Natural History, which she frequently took as a child. Jamie showed me all this and much more and I will forever be grateful for this time together.

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January 12, 2008 – I had planned an entire day of events, which started with waking her up with coffee and telling her we had to be at Grand Central Station at 8 am to catch a train. Jamie had no knowledge of the day’s agenda, which was half the fun for me, because she was not used to giving up control, especially in “her” city. We took the train north to Valhalla, NY where her grandparents’ graves are located. As we pulled up to the station I told her this was our stop. She looked very confused and stepped off the train. As the train pulled away she saw the graveyard, realized where we were, and immediately started to cry. We walked to their headstones and held each other while she told me stories about them. How she had completely idolized them and took care of them when they were elderly and sick. How she felt our relationship was similar to theirs, how happy they would have been for her that we had found each other, and how much they would have liked and loved me. It was a perfect place to start our special day.

Then we headed back to Manhattan where we walked through the streets of NY with Jamie asking me on every block, “where are we going?” We ended up at a very special Greek restaurant called Uncle Nick’s, in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan. Jamie and I had one of our first dinners in New York there, and had experienced a deep connection while talking about our grandparents and our spiritual beliefs. I still have the empty wine bottle that we drank from during our meal. After our romantic lunch, I blindly led her to the Empire State Building to enjoy the city views from the 86th floor. After looking at different landmarks and reminiscing about places we had been together, I told her I wanted to go up to the 102nd floor. She was a little confused because it costs an extra twenty dollars, and the view wouldn’t change much, but agreed to it anyway. While getting out of the elevator on the 102nd floor I said, “We’re at the closest place to heaven in New York,” which is a line from her favorite movie, “An Affair to Remember,” and the reason I picked this location. We walked to the window and I handed her a DVD of the movie, which she didn’t know I had seen, and a note I had written. As she finished reading the note, I dropped to one knee, pulled her engagement ring out from my pocket, and asked her to marry me. She seemed surprised and a little embarrassed because everyone on the 102nd floor was looking at us, but quickly became overjoyed with happiness, as she processed the question, and squeaked out, “Yes.” I placed the ring on her finger and we embraced. These were the greatest moments of my life because it meant that the girl I fell in love with the first time I saw her face would be mine forever!

After sharing our great news with our families, we went back to her apartment to get cleaned up, and then headed out for our engagement dinner. We ate at a cozy but trendy restaurant called Al di la Trattoria, just down the street from her apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. While waiting for our table I gave her a stack of small pieces of construction paper. Each of them had a date written on one side and why that date was special on the other side. Jamie would look at each date and try to figure out what we did together that day. She loved this so much! Jamie and I had only known each other for eight months, and we had already created so many special days, but January 12, 2008 was the most magical of them all!

After many discussions about Paul moving to NY or Jamie moving to NC, we decided while walking through Valley Forge Park, PA, that NC would be best. If it had been five years earlier, we likely would have chosen NY. But with both of us near 30 years old, we wanted to start a family soon and thought NC would be the right place to do that. Jamie’s parents and sister followed her to Durham, NC about a year after she moved, which helped reinforce that we had made the right decision.

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August 30, 2008 – After countless hours of planning a destination wedding, Jamie and I were married in Rhinebeck, NY. Rhinebeck is a small historic town two hours north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley, and it was an excellent location for what ended up being the perfect wedding. We often joked that Chelsea Clinton had her wedding in Rhinebeck because she had heard about ours. Jamie and I visited Rhinebeck and Rhinecliff (a tiny town next to Rhinebeck, where Jamie’s grandparents and parents had a summer home for many years) on January 17, 2008 to select a venue for our wedding reception. Jamie’s mom had found an historic hotel being renovated named The Rhinecliff, and Jamie jumped on it right away. Jamie and I immediately fell in love with the hotel and its owner, despite the huge amount of renovations left to be done. We took a big chance that it wouldn’t be ready in time, but it worked out amazingly well. Jamie had extremely high expectations for everything, especially for our wedding, and these were more than met, which says it all. Jamie had told her dad after he worked on our wedding program for hours and hours and was at his wits’ end, “Dad, it’s not worth doing, if it’s not worth doing right.” Well, everything was done right! We were blissfully happy and loved sharing these moments with all of our family and friends.

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September 2008 – We went to Hawaii for our honeymoon where we spent five days in Maui and five days in Kauai. I’ll never forget stopping at the first liquor store we saw in Maui and seeing how shocked Jamie’s face looked when I picked out bottle after bottle of high-end wine and expensive Irish Whiskey. I had always been budget friendly when it came to indulging in things, but I wanted to give her everything she’d like and deserved on our honeymoon. We took the road to Hana in Maui, went on long hikes, relaxed on the beach, ate cheese plates and delicious meals, drank expensive wine, swam with sea turtles, jumped off giant rope swings, and took a helicopter tour of the majestic island of Kauai. While in Kauai we even visited our favorite store back home, Costco. It was here that we found and ate the most impressive sashimi platter ever seen and it was only twelve dollars. This felt good after spending fifteen dollars on four small pieces at fancy restaurants. Jamie always loved sushi and yellowtail sashimi was her favorite. She was in food heaven despite the lack of ambiance the Costco parking lot provided!

We only had one bad memory from our trip and that was while hiking the Na Pali Coast. We had hiked a good two miles along the scenic coast and reached a stopping point by the ocean. I wanted to go a bit further up the mountain to a large waterfall, and Jamie wasn’t so sure about this, but agreed to it anyway. Well, it was a huge mistake, because the path was very slippery and muddy, which made it dangerous while crossing the river many times. I’ll never forget the look she gave me after jumping over the water, slipping on a rock, and falling into a shallow part of the river. She immediately began to cry, out of frustration and embarrassment, and gave me a look that cut me in two. We made it to the waterfall, and it was stunning. She pouted at first, but the beauty of the land with my arms wrapped around her, quickly melted her frustration away. We later called this “the divorce hike,” because this was one of the only times in our five years together that she did not want to be married to me. It was a once in a lifetime trip and we didn’t think life could get better than this. Frequently, we joked about moving to Kauai.

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December 2008 – It took many months of searching to find just the right house, but we eventually found the perfect one. This brought great pleasure to Jamie because she had never owned property before and had always wanted to have something that she could call her own. I’ll never forget walking around the entire property hand in hand in disbelief that this was our house and our land. Jamie loved old movies and one of her many favorites was “Gone with the Wind.” In one of the scenes Gerald O’Hara says, “It will come to you, this love of land. There’s no getting away from it if you’re Irish.” Jamie was three quarters Irish, and was very proud of her heritage, so this scene always resonated with her. At first, our home was not aesthetically to our taste, so ever since that first day, we have been working on making our home the perfect place to raise our family. Jamie had an incredible eye for things and wonderful style. She had the unique ability to blend a traditional feel with a more artistic contemporary vibe, which makes our home feel warm and comfortable, but classy and interesting at the same time. Jamie generated the ideas and I executed them. As in all things, we made quite a team!

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July 2009 – I had told Jamie about a private software company in Cary, NC that is repeatedly ranked one of the top places in the country to work. I knew it could be a great career for her when we had a family. Jamie immediately researched the company, as she did with most things, and came to the conclusion that she would get a job there. It’s funny thinking back on it now, because she didn’t even look for employment at other companies. It took her a number of months, but after waiting for the right job posting and impressing her interviewers, she was a SAS employee. I knew it was only a matter of time because when she put her mind to something, there was no stopping her. Jamie was an inside sales executive and she thrived at relationship building. The most rewarding part of her job was creating deep bonds with her clients and co-workers.

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November 17, 2010 – After carrying our twin babies for over 39 weeks (full-term for twins), Jamie delivered our son, John FitzGerald Kindem, and our daughter, Larkin Elizabeth Kindem. Jamie was incredibly dedicated to taking care of herself during her pregnancy and did everything in her power to ensure our babies would be healthy. Additionally, Jamie was a natural athlete (soccer and lacrosse star growing up), which came in handy when carrying twins. Jamie made it look easy! John was born at 6 pounds, 8 ounces and Larkin at 5 pounds, 5 ounces, so she was highly successful, as she was with most everything she did. Jamie was in the hospital for four days after their birth. I left her side once during those four days and that was to take a short walk outside. We hated being apart. Jamie thrived as a mom, and made sure our children were properly fed, soothed, and loved. We had a bookshelf full of parenting books and she read every single one of them. She had a goal of breastfeeding John and Larkin for an entire year, and reached this goal despite working full time and dealing with the rest of life.

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September 2011 – After spending two Fourth of July holidays at Watauga Lake, Tennessee with our families, we began looking at properties on the lake, more as a fun activity than anything else. Jamie and I had often talked about having a beach or mountain house where we could spend long weekends with our growing family. Jamie was fortunate to have this during her childhood and I was envious of these memories and wanted this someday for our family. One day, Jamie saw an online listing that caught her eye. We looked at the photos and description together and thought it could be a great family get-a-way spot. I did some research on the house, and the local real estate market, and believed the property had a lot of potential, especially for the price (thanks to the recession). I did a sales pitch to Jamie’s parents, my parents, and my brother and sister-in-law, and to our shock, everyone was on-board. We purchased the property a couple of months later. Jamie and I had the opportunity to spend one weekend alone, and a few long weekends with our extended families at the house. All of these trips were special, but our weekend alone was the most special to me. The mountain and lake views from the deck of our house are stunning and the early morning sunrise can be truly amazing. This beauty and peacefulness brought us right back to the happiness we shared at our hillside bungalow in Hana, Maui, on our honeymoon.

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October 2011 – While sitting on the couch in the living room, I suddenly heard multiple screams from the bathroom. I raced over to her, thinking there was a massive spider or some weird critter in the bathroom, but instead I found her holding a pregnancy test. She held it up to me: it read positive and I immediately started to laugh hysterically out of disbelief. Jamie proceeded to go through the rest of the box of testers, all of which tested positive, and I continued to laugh, as we remained in disbelief for the rest of the night.

John and Larkin were only 11 months old at this point in time and it was so much work taking care of them that we simply could not comprehend taking care of another baby. Our disbelief was short-lived and quickly became an exciting and wonderful thing. Jamie and I believed we were a “power couple” and knew that we could get through anything as long as we were together. We used this positive attitude to continue raising John and Larkin and prepare our lives for our new baby girl. Jamie excelled at life over the next nine months by taking care of her mind and body, studying parenting techniques, succeeding at her job, and building new friendships. Jamie had always pushed herself to become a smarter, faster, stronger, more confident, and happy person, but this often lead her to be disappointed with where she was with her life. It’s my belief, that during this nine month period, Jamie was finally content with who she was and where she was in her life. She had everything she wanted, even a second daughter on the way, and was truly happy.

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July 2012 – Jamie was the prettiest, happiest and most impressive nine-month pregnant woman I have ever seen. In her final week of pregnancy she was power walking daily, picking up and dropping off our kids at daycare, going to work, attending birthday parties, meeting with friends and trying everything possible to induce her labor. She ate pizza, eggplant parmigiana, spicy Indian, received acupuncture treatments, walked daily, and had intercourse, all of which theoretically help induce labor. Finally on July 30th, she began to experience a different type of contraction and said that she thought she was going into labor. That night we ate dinner with my parents and then watched some of the Olympics with hers. We had asked her parents to sleep over at our house in case we needed to go to the hospital. Jamie and I woke hours later at 1:30 am on July 31, 2012 to a wet bed because her water had broken. We quickly finished packing our bags and headed to the hospital. Jamie had read that only twenty percent of women have their water break and she wanted nothing more than to be in that twenty percent because she wanted a sign that our baby was coming soon. She expressed to me, on our way to the hospital, how proud she was of herself and how excited she was to be welcoming our baby girl to the world.

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July 31, 2012 – Jamie died around 5 am while giving birth to our baby girl. My hand was on her shoulder when she went unconscious. Words can’t describe how helpless I felt. No one should die in this fashion and no one should have to go through what I am going through now. Jamie’s death is a tragedy for many reasons. Jamie was only 35 years old, very healthy, a wonderful person, and a true gift to this world. She did not get to meet our third child, did not get to experience the joy of raising our children or see our children become parents. Her family and friends won’t have her generous personality in their lives. I won’t have her daily wisdom, the sound of her voice or her body to hold. And, most importantly, our three children, John, Larkin, and Reagan, will have no actual memories of their mom. They will only get to know her through photos, videos, and stories told by others.

Reagan O’Brien Kindem was born approximately twelve minutes after Jamie’s health spiraled out of control. She was born at eight pounds, three ounces, and after spending three days on a cooling pad and eleven days in the UNC NICU, was a healthy baby girl. Every ounce of Jamie’s heart, soul, mind and body must have been fighting for Reagan, for her to be alive today. I am so thankful for Jamie’s inner fight and her always-amazing strength! Reagan is a real fighter herself and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out from whom she got this.

Jamie was a remarkable woman! I often told her she had the “whole package” because she excelled at everything she did, was a beautiful woman inside and out, and had every quality I wanted in a wife and best friend. Our love for one another was as strong as anyone’s I have ever met. I had knee surgery this past December, which forced me to sleep on our living room couch for over two weeks. Jamie stayed on our couch with me every night and made sure I had everything I needed, despite being in her first trimester of her pregnancy. I always knew she would be there for me no matter what the circumstances.

Jamie had told me that the tie I wore in Mexico was the first thing that attracted her to me. I was always so thankful for this tie and only wore it for special occasions, but had to wear it for the last time, at Jamie’s funeral, on August 4, 2012.

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Our Unique Sayings – Jamie and I had two main sayings we would say to each other on a regular basis. The first being “do you feel loved?” This was our way of making sure the other didn’t hide being mad or upset about something and to be sure the other always felt special. I felt passionately loved by Jamie at all times and I am certain she felt deeply loved by me. Our other saying was “so average.” We would say “so average” to each other before every flight either of us took because we wanted the world to think we were average so they wouldn’t take one of us. I have been on a lot of airplanes over the last five years, and we didn’t miss one takeoff, which is quite a feat in itself. So, to set the record straight: Jamie and I were not average, we were anything but average.

This story does not come close to conveying how amazing our five years were together, but it’s the best I can do on four pages of paper. Jamie was an excellent communicator and had a gift of using words to express her feelings and thoughts. I hope she is proud of me for putting my thoughts on paper, expressing my feelings about our love, and sharing our story with the world. We accomplished and enjoyed so much in our 1,915 days together, but it wasn’t nearly enough. We thought long-term with most of our decisions, and often admired cute and happy elderly couples and regularly thought we would be just like them someday. Our future together is now just an unobtainable far off dream. We have been robbed and cheated out of this, and it’s just not fair. The pain I feel runs through every cell in my body. I am scared and long for my wife to be back in my arms. Filling out paper work and checking unmarried, reliving her death with hospital staff, and going out into public with our three kids without her feels so wrong and brings me indescribable pain. I’m in a dreamlike state of mind and can’t comprehend what is real anymore. I don’t think I would wake each morning if it were not for John, Larkin, and Reagan’s voices bouncing down the hallway to my room. Jamie gave me the three greatest gifts anyone can be given and it cost her life. I will do everything in my power to honor Jamie and make sure John, Larkin, and Reagan always feel loved.

Jamie, I love you with all my heart and will continue loving you for the remainder of my life. Your spirit will never fade away. You are the love of my life and I will do my best to raise our children in the way you would have wanted them raised and teach them the values and morals we share. Our children will know how special their mama was. I will cherish all the beautiful memories we made together and I am so thankful to have had you in my life. I miss everything about you, but most of all, I miss our long walks together, our daily early morning conversations after waking you with coffee, dancing whenever the desire came to us, your amazing smile and bright green eyes, observing you play and laugh with our children, hearing you laugh at your own jokes, catching you nibble your way through dinner while you prepared it, listening to you scream at the opponents when your team is losing, picking up your shoes and socks after you have left them anywhere and everywhere in the house, putting our kids down to bed together and singing them to sleep, our evening discussions over cocktails or a glass of wine, learning about your insightful views of the world or ways in which we can grow as individuals and a couple, talking about our future, chest time, kissing your soft lips, and holding you tightly in my arms. I love you so very much. Goodbye, my love.

Your loving husband,

John Paul Kindem