#93: Mary Anne and the Memory Garden
In this stone-cold bummer, Mary Anne’s school friend and English project partner Amelia Freeman — a kind, bright thirteen-year-old — is killed by a drunk driver while heading home from dinner with her family. The entire Stoneybrook community is shocked, but the middle school students take it really hard. Amelia was well-liked and her brother Josh is a sixth-grader.
Mary Anne and Kristy take it especially hard, but Kristy finds purpose — and healing — by starting a Stoneybrook Middle School chapter of Students Against Driving Drunk, with the rest of the BSC fully on board. Mary Anne, though, starts to feel depressed and calls her therapist, Dr. Reese. Good for her; use those healthy coping mechanisms, girl!
Dr. Reese helps Mary Anne understand that Kristy was able to bounce back because her grief was about a loss of control, and once she found something productive to put her energy into to help solve a problem, she could bounce back. Mary Anne, however, is mourning the loss of a friend. Dr. Reese suggests that Mary Anne keep a journal of memories of Amelia, and also recommends finding a way to publicly memorialize Amelia in a way that will keep her memory alive.
Inspired by an empty lot project that Dawn is working on in Palo City, CA, Mary Anne decides a garden at SMS would be the perfect way to remember Amelia and Amelia’s best friend and brother agree. They get everything approved, get a family to donate a bench, and find a place in the SMS courtyard where the garden will go in the spring. Mary Anne feels some sense of closure and feels better about going on with her life.
Side note: Ann M. Martin writes in her note that this book is connected in part to the tragic deaths of her friends Lisa Novak and Greg Peretz; the two were murdered by Sean Allain at their home in Winhall, Vermont in 1990.
Happier side note: I was thrilled to find that the BSC Friends Are Forever sticker was still intact in my book! Can’t wait to slap this baby on my MacBook.
