Frances Helen (Saunders) Hayes

NORTH CANAAN — Frances Helen (Saunders) Hayes, 82, who was born Sept. 2, 1932, died on May 1, 2015.

“So many books, so little time.” — Frank Zappa

I’m not sure she would have quoted Frank Zappa, but I’m certain Frances, my mother, would have agreed that perhaps her only regret in this life was that there were just a few more books she wanted to get to before finishing her final chapter here with us on May 1, 2015.

Frances loved books: funny stories, mystery stories, romantic stories, adventure stories, scary stories (OK, maybe not scary stories, because at the movies she’d hold her hands over her eyes and look through her fingers during the scary bits); and she lived her life creating as many wonderful stories with her friends, family and loved ones as she enjoyed in all the books she read.

“It was a dark and stormy night.” — Snoopy

As Glinda, the Good Witch, reminds us in “The Wizard of Oz,” “It’s always best to start at the beginning.” And every great story always starts off with a good “bang” — some dramatic spark that grabs your attention and pulls you right into the action. So, with a clever bit of foreshadowing, the stage is set (and the lights dim — literally) on Aug. 31, 1932, with a full solar eclipse. This dramatic portent of things to come is quickly followed two days later by a huge electrical storm and a young Ella Saunders being rushed to the hospital in labor with her fifth child. Her husband, Richard, comes to a halt at the emergency room doors just as a bolt of lightning knocks out all the lights in the small Boston hospital. The doctors work by candlelight as hospital technicians coax the emergency generators to life just in time to announce the birth of our heroine, Frances Helen Saunders, on Sept. 2, 1932.

I know, right? And that’s just the first paragraph.

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
— Groucho Marx

But, unfortunately, obituaries are just the CliffsNotes, the quick highlights so you can pass the test. And that’s tough, because there are just so many stories to tell. There are the love stories of meeting a small-town boy named Norris C. Hayes Jr., from the far-off land of Bowling Green, Ky., and falling in love, getting married and raising two children (one boy and one girl). 

And the triumphant stories of learning to drive when she was 30 years old, so she could get herself to her new job working for the adjutant general of the state of Connecticut. Or the work stories of selling real estate (and simply hating it) and owning her own used-book store (Annie’s Book Stop in Torrington and Winsted) and how very much she loved that and how happy it made her.

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” — Lemony Snicket, “Horseradish”

And then there are the travel stories. Who knew a little gal from Somerville, Mass., would travel the world and live in exotic places such as Belgium, London, Bermuda, Kentucky, Ohio, Florida, Chicago, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Connecticut.  Fourteen different addresses in her first 22 years of marriage was quite a whirlwind for even the most experienced globetrotter. Who gets to do that? 

And each new address brought its own unique adventures, like the time right after she had moved to Belgium when my sister begged her to drive her to the other side of Brussels so she could go roller skating. So being the awesome Mom she was (and armed only with her new international drivers license, two full hours of French lessons and a map of Brussels), she set out and successfully navigated her way to the Belgian roller rink.

However, the drive home would prove to be a bit more challenging.

After driving for hours through the Belgian countryside, Frances finally pulls into a gas station. She musters all the calm she can, and she bravely walks up to the station attendant. “Bonjour,” she says and, pointing with her shaking hand to her map book, repeats the only other French phrase that’s stuck with her after her full two hours of lessons. “Mon stylo est vert!” she declares, hoping that her excellent accent would help translate the phrase “My pen is green!” into helpful driving directions that just might get her home. 

Hey, it must have worked, because there are a lot more stories to tell.

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Sorry. I know. The CliffsNotes.

So here they are, stories of baking a birthday cake in any elaborate shape your children wanted for their birthdays (including Spice Drop eyes and buttons on “The Bear,” which was a particular favorite). Stories of acting in community theater plays and then doing the costumes for every single one of your kids’ school productions — ever. So much so that through their high school years, people only knew her as “Kevin’s Mom” or “Kathleen’s Mom.”

Or there was the time she said “yes” to having my college band move into her house to live, eat and rehearse for an entire six months; and how much she loved raising her Norwich terriers, Digby and Jasper, and letting us kids name their puppies after the Marx Brothers (there were so many they got all the way up to Gummo).

And then there’s how her kitchens were always painted the brightest shade of yellow, and that she planted daffodils at every one of her homes; delivered Meals on Wheels to those in need (in several countries); taught Weight Watchers classes and hosted her world-famous Game Night with tables set up in every corner of the house filled with cards and board games and food and hand-made gambling visors and sleeve garters and lots and lots of laughter.

Or how about the stories of the bookstore? Dreams of that bookstore must have started early on, because at every one of those 14 addresses the first two things she always did were take us kids and 1) get everyone a library card and 2) find the used-book store.  And when she realized that dream, it was perfect.  It was her little corner of love and curiosity and knowledge and fun, where she knew every customer by name, along with what they liked to read, and where she always just happened to have a little stack of “a few things” she thought they might enjoy, ready and waiting for them.

Frances’ life was filled with stories — both at work and at home, where stacks of books rose perilously high on the nightstands and the kitchen table, and surrounded every chair, as well as the couch and that spot that had “just the right angle” where she could see her garden, and do a little needlepoint or soak in a new story of people who had a curiosity of things that were … different.

I know. I know.  But, you see the tricky thing about stories is the endings. Endings are always the hardest part.

But, the end of one story is really just the beginning of another, isn’t it? And these stories (and oh, so many more) will live on in the new ones created by her children, Kevin Saunders Hayes and his wife, Victoria Levy, and Kathleen (Hayes) Borkowski and her husband, Aaron Borkowski, as well as her grandchildren, Rachel Borkowski and Hannah Borkowski, and all her nieces and nephews and all their children and all her many friends.

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” — Jorge Luis Borges

I think Frances imagined the same thing, a Paradise filled with all kinds of new funny, mysterious, romantic, adventurous and scary (OK, maybe not scary) stories to enjoy forever. 

So, if you think about it, this story really has a happy ending. What happier ending could you wish for our heroine? Paradise as a kind of library with … so many stories. And oh, so much time.

“But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”
— A. A. Milne, “The House
at Pooh Corner”

The memorial service for our mother will be held Saturday, May 16, at 1 p.m. at Geer Village in the Hollenbeck Room. Burial will be on Sunday, May 17, at 11 a.m. at 29 Under Mountain Road in Salisbury.

In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to any group or cause that strives to make the world a better, kinder, more compassionate, interesting and fun place to live in. Or share a story with someone you love. Or a stranger. Stories are awesome. Stories are life.