My son Ami, got married in September to the most wonderful and beautiful young lady, Stacy. His business, Wingtip, had the opportunity recently to participate in the Make-A-Wish event for the “Bat Kid”, Miles Scott.
This is one of the most awesome soups I’ve ever tasted. On New Year’s Eve day, Win and I were delivering our last Chameleon Fine Furniture piece of the year. Jean and her family invited us to have their traditional New Year’s Eve dinner, “Chuck’s Cabbage Soup”.
When we opened Chameleon 15 years ago I sought to hire a seamstress to be an in-house workroom for those who could not sew Guadalupe (Seamstress) and son, Rafael (Upholsterer) their own pillows.
Cystic fibrosis is an inherited condition for which there are only temporary treatments. It was given the nickname 65 roses supposedly because a toddler once told her mother that her friend had “65 roses…cys-tic-fib-ro-sis”.
Jessica wanted to be a fashion model and as you can see from her pictures could have easily been one!
Jessica organized our special class at Chameleon called “Zippers and Tamales” in honor of her Mom. We all knew that Guadalupe installed the best concealed zippers and also made the best tamales. Jessica made hand outs and recipe cards. It was one of the most special evenings for mother and daughter and the 10 people …
One day as I was taking Jessica home after she did some entries for us she asked me how I could fall asleep with so many business pressures. I responded that I counted my blessings.
Jessica was beautiful inside and out. As her condition of Cystic Fibrosis worsened her trips to Children’s hospital in LA became more frequent and longer.
When Liz, my right-hand-woman, came to work for us 6 years ago in March, Jessica had just gone to Children’s Hospital for what would become her last time. Liz only heard the stories about Jessica and saw a few photos that Guadalupe kept at her work station. Liz is a wonderful artist and unbeknownst to any of us she began a painting of Jessica.
Sam, Guadalupe’s oldest son also has Cystic Fibrosis. After Jessica’s death Sam registered in February 2009 for a transplant. We will never know why Jessica did not want a transplant. At Chameleon we were all “prepared” for when the call would come in that a donor was available. Guadalupe and Sam would have to immediately …
