news-record.com

OAK RIDGE — Last Christmas was a quiet but pleasant holiday for Cathy Nodine, spent at home in Oak Ridge with her husband and her dog.

She wished she could have been with her kids, but Nodine, 60, knew they’d all be together in a few weeks for a holiday celebration in the mountains of Wyoming, a typical getaway for the family that loved to ski.

When Nodine spoke to her son, David Nodine, that day, he wished her a Merry Christmas and apologized for not sending a gift.

“Maybe we’ll give you something on January 7th,” he said.

Nodine didn’t get to see David as planned.

He died on Dec. 27 when an avalanche swept him away on a ski trail in Jackson Hole, Wyo., burying him below 8 feet of snow.

But she still got his gift.

The day after David died, his wife, Christine, told Nodine that she was eight weeks pregnant.

“It was very bittersweet …” Nodine said. “I was so sad that David was gone, but I wanted to be a grandmother.”

On Aug. 4, Christine gave birth to a baby girl, 6 pounds and 13 ounces, 19 inches long in Dallas, where she’s now living. She named her daughter Annette, a name she and David had picked out before he died.

“We cried after we held the baby,” Nodine said. “We wished David had been there, but we knew his spirit was there.”

Nodine held her granddaughter, a child David had longed to have, that day at the hospital. She said she first noticed it at the 20-week sonogram, but it was even more evident now.

Annette looked just like him.

It’s not just in the eyes or the nose, Nodine said. It’s everything. Everything about her granddaughter looks like her son.
 

Now, Nodine copes with David’s death by memorializing his life for her granddaughter. She’s collecting photos and mementos, creating a book for Annette.

Digging through boxes of his old pictures and stories he wrote in grade school has helped, Nodine said.

She knows she will be able to show her granddaughter what kind of a man her father was.

Contact Tricia L. Nadolny at 373-7028 or tricia.nadolny@news-record.com