The Road to Tara

It's impossible to believe that today marks the two month point of your absence and it is no more real today than it was two months ago. 

Mom wrote a guest post about the last daycation that you two had together the weekend before you died. Only the two of you would WANT to go, voluntarily, tour Tara from Gone With the Wind...

A guest post by Patricia Kiessling:

I wanted to write about the last weekend I spent with Chelsea, which also turned out to be the last weekend of her life.

I was so pleased when Chelsea joined the chorus at North Georgia College.  I sent her Savannah Arts Academy choir dress to her and then decided I would like to attend her concert on February 26.  I knew I couldn’t attend all of her concerts, being about 5 hours away, but I thought I could at least go to her first one.  The week before the concert, she forwarded me a Living Social deal for a Gone with the Wind tour in Jonesboro, Georgia.  I e-mailed her and asked her “Does this mean you want to go to this?” and she responded “every time I go by that billboard on I-75, I want to go to visit it.”  So we decided we would meet in Jonesboro on Saturday and do the tour, which included a museum, a bus tour (not sure what that was about), and a ticket to Stately Oaks Plantation.  I got to the museum around 12:30, about an hour before the bus tour began.  I toured the museum, waiting for Chelsea, and then called her as the time for the bus tour approached.  She was in Roswell, Georgia, but thought she could get there in time.  I told her no way could she get from Roswell to Jonesboro in time and not to even try it.  I talked to the museum ticket lady and she assured me that we could use the bus tickets another time.  So Chelsea got to the museum about 1:45 and we toured the museum.  By that time, I could have conducted a tour of the museum I had viewed everything so many times.  We talked about how Hattie McDaniel (Mammy) was criticized for playing the part of a “negro servant” and how I read that Clark Gable had really bad breath and Vivien Leigh hated having to kiss him.

 After we finished at the museum, we drove out to Stately Oaks Plantation, which as far as I could tell had nothing to do with Gone with the Wind but was included in the deal.

 We had a good time wandering the grounds and visiting the gift shop, while waiting for the docent to take us on the tour of the home.  Afterwards, I told her maybe she could take the bus tour tickets and come back with someone else.  She said “who, except you and I would want to go on a Gone with the Wind bus tour?” Good point.  I still have those tickets.

My dad was in the hospital so we decided we would go visit him while we were down that way.  Unlike a lot of teenagers, Chelsea never seemed to mind spending time with her grandparents.  We went to St. Joseph’s and visited with my mom and dad for an hour or so.  While we were there, my mom asked Chelsea what she wanted to study in college and she told her grandmother she thought she wanted to be a nurse.  I couldn’t really see her as a nurse, but she certainly would have cheered up a lot of patients if she had become one! 

We decided to eat dinner on our way back up to White County and she couldn’t decide between the Varsity and Applebee’s, but in the end, she chose Applebee’s, where she, of course, knew a server who worked there. 

The next day, her dad and I attended her first North Georgia College chorus concert and then went to eat at a little restaurant on the square in Dahlonega.  As we were sitting down, two guys walked by outside the restaurant and she gets up and runs outside to speak to them.  She was such a people person! 

My mother thinks God gave me that last weekend with her because He knew He was taking her back soon.  I am so grateful for the (short) time I had with my baby girl, but naturally wish it had been much longer.  I love all of my children, but each one has a special place in my heart.  Now there is a huge hole in my life where Chelsea used to be and my heart aches from being broken when she was taken from me so suddenly.  I am amazed, but not surprised, at the impact she had on the people she encountered during her short, but full, life.  She was a happy-go-lucky, vibrant, exuberant personality who is profoundly missed and will be forever.