Traverse City Record-Eagle

Kathy Gibbons: Northern Living

Related Photos

  • Gibbons

    CSS386F.jpg
June 6, 2010

Kathy Gibbons: Filling void with hope

By Kathy Gibbons ----

Sometimes you meet another woman, and there's an instant connection.

I can think of one who works in an area department store. We got to talking one day a few years ago and within 10 minutes, knew stuff about each other that even some closer to us don't. It's always like that when I run into her — intense conversation across a counter or shopping carts. We've never gotten together like we say we should, but if we could, we would be close friends.

The first time I met Adell Maksimowicz, of Traverse City, less than two years ago was like that too. She was having a rough time. Her husband, Stan, had just passed away. After 37 years of marriage, he was still the love of her life. At the end, she was so busy caring for him at home with hospice that she didn't have time to imagine life without him or how she would cope.

Then he was gone. She missed him terribly. And there were financial considerations; her household income dropped by two-thirds.

She had to sell her house and move into a small apartment.

"That's when the loneliness set in," she said.

A spiritual adviser/friend suggested she find something that she liked to do — something she was good at to fill the void.

"He said, 'Create a job for yourself,'" said Adell, who was a hospital credit manager before she retired.

Then she was saw an article about becoming an ordained wedding minister and was intrigued.

"I talked to my daughter about it, and she said, 'You can do that, Mom,'" Adell recalled.

And so she did. Completing the process online, she's now able to perform weddings — and at 75, is having the time of her life.

She officiated at her granddaughter's marriage. Then there was the military couple, never on leave together and anxious to get married, suddenly in town at the same time and needing a minister. There was the pair who met online — a second marriage for both. Still another couple was flying her to Seattle to perform their ceremony. She averages about one service a month.

It's opened up a whole new world and brought Adell's spirit back in a way she couldn't have imagined.

"I make the ceremonies so they're just about the couple and how special this day is for them," she said. "I also want them to remember that when things get a little hectic, to remember this day, remember how much you love each other."

As Adell remembers her Stan.

"He was my guy — my best friend, my lover and everything," she said. "Having a good, wonderful healthy love is priceless, and so I think about that, how I want this couple to be as much in love as we were.

"He still made my heart sing, and I want that for other people."

Kathy Gibbons can be reached at gibbonskath@yahoo.com. For more of Kathy's columns, log on to record-eagle.com/kathygibbons.

Text Only