Spring was near. The primavera trees finally began to bloom in town, although they had done so a month earlier out in Pitillal. Everything was pointing to another beautiful Saturday. The day before, I had picked up my friend and her daughter at the airport. I hadn’t seen her since her last visit to PV, back in November. We were going to have such a great time! The last time her daughter had accompanied her, she fell upon the one and only week of cloudy, rainy days in the month of January 2004. This time would be different, I just knew it… and then came the phone call. It was Jan, to tell me that Mary Sue had passed away. A few weeks earlier, I had heard that she was in remission, that she was feeling much better, but now she was gone.
Mary Sue was my friend. It is an honor that she bestowed on me, one that will stay with me for as long as I am given life. Mary Sue didn’t befriend just anybody. And not everyone was ready for her manner, her integrity and her elegant, but at the same time in-your-face honesty and straight forwardness. Her physical appearance was deceiving. That petite body garbed in loose blouses or safari suits betrayed a ball of energy, a tireless voyageuse, flitting around the world in search of new, undiscovered talent in the most remote corners of the world, or attending international jewelry trade shows - a visionary. And she loved Puerto Vallarta. She openly bemoaned the lack of vision –and caring- on the part of the past municipal administration. She wanted to see the lush south shore of the bay developed, with boutique hotels and expensive villas. I think she saw a future Puerto Vallarta as a Monte Carlo of Mexico. What beautiful dreams she had!
So many have sent in their thoughts and feelings and remembrances about Mary Sue that there was only room to print a part of them in this week’s issue of this publication. But all agreed on one point: We have lost an icon. Rest in peace, dear friend.
I spoke to Jan a couple of times during the week. During one of our conversation, it suddenly occurred to me, what an ironic coincidence, what ludicrous timing, that such a beloved and respected lady should be eulogized in an issue of the Tribune dedicated to April Fools’ Day. I expressed my concern to Jan. There was a moment of silence, then she broke out in laughter. She said, “You know what? Mary Sue must be laughing her cowboy boots off up there! It’s perfect!” Knowing Mary Sue’s sense of humor, she’s probably right. So let us all remember all the joy she brought us –whenever she wasn’t traveling- and celebrate this great little lady’s life.
Mary Sue has been on my mind all the time since last Saturday. And as I went about my daily routine, looking around me, I became more aware of those little things that she and I used to laugh about on our all-too-rare outings. As I was driving on the Libramiento, on the way to the airport to pick up my daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, (who had finally managed to get away from the 30 below weather of the Great White North) I marveled at the brightness of the colors that surrounded me, and then I saw the palm trees. I had never really noticed them before. There are nine of them, Royal Palms all, planted in a row, along the side of the road just east of the corner of Francisco Villa Blvd… directly beneath the telephone and power lines! Hallooo! I figure they’ve got another year or so before they uproot the telephone posts, wires and all. Mary Sue would have burst into that infectious laughter of hers…
I also noticed the cruise ships anchored in the port, the immense Oosterdam, right next to the Carnival Pride, the former twice the size of the latter. What amazing technology enables these floating cities to …float!
Back to more earthly matters, I promised you a photo of the street on which the Tribune’s new facilities are located, so here it is. The end of civilization as we know it. The very foot of the Sierra Madre… It’s the end of the road, friends, can’t go much further, other than up. Gee, sounds like an epitaph…
Inevitably, spring did arrive, on Wednesday, March 21st. There were floats and pick-up trucks filled with costumed children and brightly-colored balloons throughout the city, and in the evening, beneath the nearly-new moon shining its thin Cheshire cat grin down upon the big fiesta on the beach at Cuates y Cuetes, the Jazz Fest. It attracted a huge crowd this year, and everyone had a fabulous time, listening to the various bands and watching the dancers in ancient Aztec dress performing their traditional ceremony to welcome this season of renaissance.
Celebrate life, my friends. It is all too short for us to risk missing a moment.
I wish you all good health, and do share it, and your good fortune, with the less fortunate around us. You will feel so great! Hasta luego. pvmom04@yahoo.com
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