#208: stories

What a weird day, piloted on one hour and 30 minutes of sleep (12 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. and then off to Portland then turnaround come back again to be at work in Astoria by 7:30 a.m. The moonset was lovely and the sunrise beautiful). I don't think I'm tired but it's like when they're drilling in your mouth at the dentist's office and though you can't feel the pain, you know it's going on. So. I don't feel tired, but I know I must be. Deep down. Like maybe in my ankles? Kidney? Something. I don't remember being this moody since...well, while we're being honest, I guess it hasn't been that long. Since the bail hearing probably when the victim's autopsy report came out and I felt like throwing up and kicking things.

Here's a teaser of what I wrote for today's paper. This is a test to see if you want to keep on reading... Let me know if you don't. I learn from this. I'm curious.

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When 10-month-old Kaiya Maclay sees a photo of her mother, her eyes widen, her mouth opens to form a perfect oval. She pushes her tongue out against her gums.

“That’s her excited face,” says grandmother Judy Bleecker.

If it’s a photo Kaiya has seen many times before, she will make that face and dance, waving her arms and kicking her legs.

She’s old enough now to understand that the people in the photographs aren’t alive. She sees her mother’s picture and knows it’s only a picture. The real person is somewhere else.

But if Kaiya is shown a photograph of her mother that she’s never seen before, she’ll look at it intently then take it in her hands and turn it around to peer at the back.

She is looking for Jess Maclay, but she can’t find her.

Maclay, 30, a caseworker with Clatsop Community Action, died in a car accident Sunday morning, Feb. 20.

The car she was driving hit a patch of ice on U.S. Highway 26. She lost control, spun across both lanes and smashed into a fire truck parked on the side of the road.

It was the third car accident to happen at that exact spot that morning.

Emergency responders cut Jess, her husband TJ Maclay and their daughter Kaiya out of the car.

Jess was taken by helicopter to Portland where she was pronounced dead soon after arrival.

Here's the FULL STORY.