After taking the plunge to leave everything behind in Mississippi and move  to Maine with my 11 year old daughter, we found ourselves with a two month period during which we needed short term housing while waiting for our rental home on Vinalhaven to become vacant.  During our search for something short term, we were blessed to have met Mz. Jan through an advertisement on craiglist for the rental of her small home on Campbell Street.  The image of her is still engrained in my memory as we pulled up to the little, vintage home: she stood there on the steps, very tall, in a jacket and a big hat with various pins and buttons attached to it.  We were immediately taken by her love of nature and insistence that certain areas of the yard must remain untouched and left in their natural state so that a specific type of butterfly could feed off those plants.  Our short meeting to discuss the possibility of a short term rental of the home lead us to a personal invitation to her waterside home where she graciously gave us a tour of the entire house and the grounds, once again detailing the history of the home and naming the various plants growing wildly in the yard.  I remember fondly thinking that  the neighbors probably felt her yard to be an eyesore compared to their well manicured yards (smile), but it was quite obvious that Mz. Jan could have cared less.  She invited us in and offered us snacks, introduced us to her cats, and invited me and my daughter back anytime for cake and board games.  Knowing that I was looking for a teaching job, she even called me the following day to tell me about a local school with a vacancy and asked when we might be able to come back and visit.  Unfortunately, we never made it back to Boothbay Harbor to visit with her and had to return to Mississippi less than six months later.  I spoke with her one other time while we were in Maine but she has never left my memory, so much so that I found myself thinking of her over the past several weeks until I finally searched and searched in hopes of reconnecting with her.  How heartbroken I feel knowing that we never had the chance to visit with her again.  I list her among our fondest memories of our time in Maine and will never think of or visit there again wtihout remembering her.