A wooden bench upheld by sand-sunken legs like toes in the sand, offers an introduction to a woman who once walked the shores of the Frankfort beach where it sits.
Words etched in a plaque embedded in the bench’s back read, “In loving memory of TRISH SPYKER, with the moniker in all capital letters as if to say Trish was here like one might etch their name in the trunk of a tree to commemorate a fleeting moment in time.
Trish Spyker was there. Trish Spyker was here.
Her only child needs the world to know that.
“I just didn’t want the world to forget about her,” said Julie Singleton, Trish Spyker’s daughter.
This mother and daughter story began when Trish was 18 in the Kalamazoo area. Julie came into the world when her mom was not yet equipped to be a full-time caretaker. A family member helped raise Julie, she said.
But Saturdays — those were sacred, the two growing up at the same time.
“I’d still spend every weekend with her — like every Saturday of my life and we would do everything together,” said Singleton.
Trish Spyker grew into a woman who could read a 1,000 page book in a day, a “hobby collector” who obsessed over new things until she earned some mastery over them such as writing and flying big kites on Frankfort’s beach, according to her daughter.
“She was a force….She loved fiercely. She didn’t do anything half.. You know? When she fell in love with something, she fell in love hard.”
It seems so too, did Spyker’s husband and Julie’s step father, David Spyker.
Above Trish’s name on the bench are words of poetry. It read in part, “Twenty eight years walking the shore hand in hand. Loved. Forever and ever. Always.” It’s a public love letter from a grieving husband to the love of his life, according to Julie.
Trish and David relocated to Frankfort from the Kalamazoo area after Trish retired from her vocation as a goldsmith at a jewelry store. Very quickly Julie also fell in love with the area and followed her mother to the city on the pristine shores of Lake Michigan where mother and daughter shared countless walks. One imagines their shuffles leaving behind transient paths in the sand evidencing their moments together.
“I loved Frankfort so much I told the rest of my family that ‘I’m never coming back home.This is my home now,’” said Singleton.
Then, as is true of all love stories, this one came to an end.
Or maybe it just transformed.
Trish got sick.
Sixteen months after she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma in the brain, she died, carving a crater-sized void in the life of the young woman who still desperately needed her mother.
The loss, “doesn’t go away,” said Julie.
I can relate.
When I was 27, my mother slipped out of her body after a long illness that took her mentally and emotionally much sooner than it physically shut her down.
My mom’s smile infused light into every room she entered. She laughed easily, though she couldn’t tell a joke for anything, and when she hugged me, her rhythmic back pats were salve for my soul.
My aunt Loretta, my mom’s sister, provides the same soothing pats when she embraces me. For a moment, I’m transported inside my mom’s arms again.
If only.
To me, one of the universe’s great mysteries is how on earth life could callously go on unphased without my mother in it.
I imagine this is a universal sentiment experienced by the people still breathing when the person they couldn’t bear to lose, isn’t anymore.
When the audacious sun offensively rises over a world without our loved one, also universal may be the need to make certain that the same ever-turning world knows our loved one was here.
Julie Singleton did a few things. She opened the coffee shop Bella’s Café in her beloved Frankfort, naming it after her mom for whom Bella was her nickname.
And, she had a daughter of her own, Elannah Isabella, who is now 14.
Julie is doing everything she can to foster a relationship that models the bond Julie had with Trish.
“Im thriving and so happy and I owe everything to her,” said Julie.
And when people see her “mom’s bench”?
“I just hope they know that that bench isn’t just a bench, it’s representative of someone that was loved so much.”
Trish Spyker was indeed here.
Maybe this is my way of reminding the world Elaine Michels was too.
\Bio Box We’d like to hear about ways people are lifting each other up, caring for each other, creating connected communities and honoring loved ones. For example, we’d welcome stories about small acts of kindness and compassion that create connection and reverberate throughout our communities. Please send ideas to Micchk99@gmail.com.
More coverage We’d like to hear about ways people are lifting each other up, caring for each other, creating connected communities and honoring loved ones. {/div}For example, we’d welcome stories about small acts of kindness and compassion that create connection and reverberate throughout our communities. Please send ideas to features@record-eagle.com