Melissa McLay -- March 11, 1984 to September 22, 2002

February 21 | The Ice Cream Cone Tradition
One sunny spring afternoon I walked into the computer room and began talking to Melissa. Halfway through one of my sentences I noticed she was crying. I stopped, knelt down, and hugged her for the longest time.

Her boyfriend had just broken up with her.

I don’t know which boyfriend it was, but he had hurt her. She told me the entire story – the parts I didn’t already know, that is.

My protective-sister complex took over and I needed to get her out of the house. I drove us out to the end of the Spit and out onto the beach. The tide was high; we walked for a little bit, but ended up sitting on the rocks.

We sat there for over an hour throwing rocks at the birds and coming up with the most despicable, painful, degrading, nasty things we could do to said boyfriend. Each action we thought of taking against him was worse than the last; all of this made us feel much better.

I bought her an ice cream cone at the Frosty Bear on the Spit and we took one of her shortcuts home.

The rock throwing, bad-talking the ex, and the ice cream cone became tradition for the ending of any of her relationships.

Last February I had an awful evening and called her to talk about it; we were on the phone for two hours at least. In the mail a week later I got a card from her with a little note that made my week:

Next time you’re in Homer, I owe you an ice cream cone.

I still have that note, and she still owes me ice cream.
Remembered by Valette | 3:59pm

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please note: the dates for all comments posted before january 8, 2004 are incorrect.

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