Friday night I opened my Facebook page to find that someone had passed away from cancer and I was shocked. I hadn’t known she was sick, but looking at her page, I saw that the news was recent. A support page was created on April 2nd to fundraise and pray for a cure. A few days later she was gone. I don’t know how long she was battling the disease before it was made public on Facebook, but I just can’t believe she is no longer here. She is only a few years older than me (quite young!). In the last few years we haven’t been in touch as much as circumstances had changed in her life. However, she made a huge impact in my life without her perhaps even knowing how much.
It is because of this person that I now own my own business. She was my Mom’s manicurist (and mine on the rare occasions I actually pampered myself!) I had met her in the early 1990s and she did my nails for my wedding in 1992 (even though her son had been born just 3 days before our appointment). She said luckily he was born when he was so that she could be home for my appointment (she only came home the day before). At my appointment that day we gazed at a beautiful baby boy and chatted about my upcoming life as a married woman, as well as other stuff two women talk about at nail appointments. Over the years I’d see her periodically and we’d chat and catch up on life.
One time when I was at the salon with my Mom, she asked me if I’d be the bookkeeper for her husband’s business. The one who had helped in the past had moved away and she told me she hated reconciling the bank account. She didn’t mind paying the bills, but figuring out how to get Quickbooks to match the bank statement frustrated her. I told her I wasn’t sure. I knew how to do the work, but I was currently working as the full charge bookkeeper for a publishing company. She bugged me for months. Finally I agreed. I applied for my business license, bought my own version of Quickbooks, and I began to do their reconciliations each month. I’d stop by their office or house, chat with Michelle and her husband if he was there, do the work at home, and return the paperwork within the next few days. The system worked well. I decided if I was going to pay for a business license, I might as well add a few more clients.
I was working 3 days a week at my “regular” job so I could volunteer at my kids’ school each week. I added a few clients I could assist once a month and did the work during my free time the kids were in school and I wasn’t at my “real” job. In 2004, my husband told me to quit my job at the publishing company and focus on my own business. Here we are 9 years later, and I have a successful business, offer employment to others, and do what I love. And it all started because someone hated reconciling bank accounts and wouldn’t stop asking me for help. I’ll be forever grateful to her for her persistence and trust in me.
Her husband’s situation changed a few years ago and they were no longer going to operate the business, so my services were no longer needed. We would see each other periodically (especially when my Mom came back into town and we scheduled manicures with her) but our contact was hit and miss after the business closed. But not seeing her much in the last few years doesn’t take away the sadness of knowing she is gone. I can only imagine the pain her family is going through right now. She was way too young to be taken so soon. My thoughts and prayers are with her family at this time.
Candy
