Part 2: Two Years Ago Our Motorcycle Club Stopped In A Park In Rural Pennsylvania To Help An 84-Year-Old Widow Whose Golden Retriever Had Collapsed. We Started Visiting Her Every Sunday. She Passed Away Last Spring. We Kept The Promise We Made Her On Her Last Sunday.

I’m going to tell this slow. The slow part is the whole story.

I want to tell you about the morning of Sunday, April 9th, 2023.

It was a clear cool early-spring morning in northwestern Pennsylvania. The temperature was 52 degrees Fahrenheit. The maple trees in Tionesta were starting to bud. The Allegheny River was running clear and high from the snowmelt.

Eight of us had ridden down from our clubhouse outside Warren on Route 62.

We had:

— Mr. Tomas Pawlowski-Bouchard, 71, club president, Vietnam veteran (1st Cav, 1968-1969), retired steel worker. — Mr. Henrik Bouchard-Strathmore, 67 (me), road captain, Army veteran (1976-1979), retired PennDOT. — Mr. Anders Castellanos-Olufsen, 69, sergeant-at-arms, retired letter carrier, lifelong Tionesta resident. — Mr. Demetrius Mackiewicz-Whitcombe, 63, retired truck driver, Polish-American. — Mr. Stanislaw Lindqvist-Mackiewicz, 81, oldest member of our club, retired Tionesta township maintenance worker, widower, Polish-American. — Mr. Lazlo Pridgeon-Bouchard, 58, recently retired PennDOT, my younger cousin. — Mr. Marcus Strathmore-Bouvier, 53, our youngest member, currently working at a small auto-body shop in Tidioute. — Mr. Aidan Olufsen-Castellanos, 60, retired Army cook (20 years active duty), our club chaplain (he is a deacon at Holy Family Catholic Church in Tionesta).

We pulled into the public lot at the Tionesta Riverfront Park at 11:42 a.m. We had been planning to grill burgers at the picnic shelter. Tomas had bought a 5-pound package of ground chuck at the Tops grocery store in Warren the night before. Lazlo had packed buns, condiments, and a small portable Weber grill in his pickup truck which had driven separately from the bikes.

We parked our motorcycles in formation along the south side of the lot. The lot was nearly empty. A young couple was walking a Labrador at the far end of the park near the river. A man in his fifties was fishing off the small dock. Nobody else was there.

Except the elderly woman on the bench under the maple tree.

Tomas saw her first.

He had taken off his helmet and was hooking it on his sissy bar when he stopped and looked across the park.

He said, very quietly, “Henrik. Look at that lady.”

I looked.

I saw a small white-haired woman in a faded navy beret sitting on a bench under a maple tree. She had a Golden Retriever lying at her feet. The Golden was not moving the way a healthy dog moves. He was lying on his side. His breathing was visibly labored from 80 feet away.

Tomas walked back to the rest of us.

He said, “Boys. Hats off. We are walking over slow. We are not going to scare her. Anders, you and Stanislaw stay back at the bikes — she might be more comfortable with fewer of us. The rest of us, slow walk. Cuts on. Hats off. No noise.”

We took our helmets off.

We walked across the grass in single file.

Six of us. Slow.

We stopped about twenty feet from the bench.

Tomas approached alone.

He took off his cut. He folded it over his left arm. He held his helmet in his right hand at his side. He walked the last few feet to the bench.

He sat down on the bench about three feet from the elderly woman.

He said, very softly, “Ma’am. I’m Tomas. I’m 71. I’m a Vietnam vet. We are bikers but we are not the bad kind. I see your dog is not doing well. Can I help? Can I call a vet for you? Can I drive you somewhere? Anything you need, ma’am. We are here. Anything.”

The elderly woman looked at Tomas.

She looked at the rest of us standing in a small half-circle about twenty feet away.

She looked back at Tomas.

She said, in a quiet Polish-American accent, “Sir. His name is Buttercup. He is 14 years old. He is dying. I called my veterinarian this morning but they are closed on Sundays. I do not have a car. I do not know what to do. He has been my only family for six years since my husband Henrik passed. Sir. I do not know what to do.”

Tomas did not look at us.

He just said, “Aidan. Go up to the truck. Call Dr. Lyudmila Pawlowski-Mackiewicz at Warren Animal Hospital. Tell her Tomas needs an emergency house call to Tionesta Riverfront Park. Tell her it’s a 14-year-old Golden in respiratory distress. Tell her we will pay. Lazlo, drive your truck around to that picnic shelter. We are going to make this lady comfortable.”

He turned back to the elderly woman.

He said, “Ma’am. We have a vet on the way. She will be here in about 25 minutes. Now — what is your name?”

The elderly woman said, “Sir. I am Mrs. Imogen Mackiewicz-Olufsen.”

Tomas was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, “Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen. I am Tomas Pawlowski-Bouchard. My grandparents are from Krakow. My mother was born there in 1933. We came to America in 1948.”

Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen looked at him.

She started crying again.

She said, in Polish, “Tomas. Krakow. Moi rodzice też. Z Krakowa.”

It means: “Tomas. Krakow. My parents too. From Krakow.”

Tomas said, in Polish, “Pani. Proszę. Proszę powiedzieć mi o Buttercupie.”

It means: “Ma’am. Please. Please tell me about Buttercup.”

Tomas and Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen spoke Polish for about ten minutes.

I do not speak Polish. Demetrius Mackiewicz-Whitcombe and Stanislaw Lindqvist-Mackiewicz speak Polish. They told me afterward what was said.

Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen told Tomas that Buttercup had been her companion since 2009. He had been declining slowly over the past six months. He had stopped eating two days before. He had collapsed on his walk that morning, halfway to the park. She had carried him the last 300 yards. She weighed 105 pounds. Buttercup weighed 78 pounds. She had carried him.

She had no family.

She had no neighbors close enough to call.

She had walked to the park because she had thought Buttercup might want to see the river one last time.

I want to tell you that I cried in the grass behind Tomas while I listened to him translate this story for us in pieces in English.

I was not the only one who cried.

Dr. Lyudmila Pawlowski-Mackiewicz, 49 years old, the veterinarian at Warren Animal Hospital, drove the 28 miles from her clinic in Warren to Tionesta Riverfront Park in 23 minutes.

She arrived at 12:14 p.m.

She knelt down on the grass next to Buttercup.

She examined him gently. She listened to his heart. She looked at his gums. She palpated his belly.

She turned to Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen.

She spoke in a quiet kind voice.

She said, **”Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen. Buttercup is in heart failure. He has been in heart failure for some time, I believe. He is in distress now. He is not in physical pain — he is just very tired. I would like to ask you what you would like to do. I have my emergency kit. I can give him a sedative now. He will fall asleep peacefully here in the grass next to you. He will not feel anything. He will just sleep. Or — if you would prefer — I can put him in my van and drive him back to my clinic for further evaluation. But Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen, I do not think there is anything I can do at the clinic that will help him. I think he is ready to go. I think he is telling you he is ready.”

Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen looked down at Buttercup.

Buttercup looked up at her.

He thumped his tail.

Twice.

Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen said, very quietly, “Doctor. Let him go. Here. In the grass. By the river. With me. Please.”

Dr. Pawlowski-Mackiewicz nodded.

She opened her emergency kit.

She prepared the sedative.

She looked at Tomas.

She said, “Mr. Pawlowski-Bouchard. Would you and your men sit with Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen during this?”

Tomas said, “Yes.”

He turned to us.

He said, “Brothers. Sit down. All of you. Take off your cuts. Make a circle around the bench.”

We did.

The eight of us sat in a circle around the bench under the maple tree at Tionesta Riverfront Park on the morning of April 9th, 2023. We took off our cuts. We folded them over our arms. We sat on the cool spring grass.

Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen got down on the grass with Buttercup.

She put his head in her lap.

She spoke to him in Polish.

She told him about Henrik. She told him about his brother dog Marigold who had gone before him. She told him about heaven. She told him it was okay.

Dr. Pawlowski-Mackiewicz administered the sedative at 12:33 p.m.

Buttercup fell asleep in Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen’s lap within ninety seconds.

His breathing slowed.

His breathing slowed.

His breathing stopped.

He was gone at 12:38 p.m.

Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen sat in the grass with Buttercup’s head in her lap for almost twenty minutes.

She did not cry the entire time.

She kissed his head twice.

She told him goodbye in Polish.

When she was ready, she looked up.

She said, in English, “Tomas. I want to bury him at home. In our garden. Next to Henrik. Will you help me?”

Tomas said, “Yes.”

We carried Buttercup’s body wrapped in a blanket from Lazlo’s truck to the bed of the truck.

Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen rode in the cab of Lazlo’s truck with him to her farmhouse.

Tomas rode his Harley behind them.

The rest of us rode behind Tomas.

A seven-bike funeral procession for a 78-pound Golden Retriever down Cherry Run Road outside Tionesta, Pennsylvania, on a clear cool Sunday afternoon in April 2023.

We buried Buttercup in Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen’s garden at 3:14 p.m. on April 9th, 2023.

Her farmhouse was small. A 1920s two-story white-painted clapboard with a small wraparound porch. It sat on three acres of cleared land with woods behind it. Her husband Henrik had built a small woodworking shop behind the house in 1978. Her garden was a 30-foot by 40-foot fenced plot with raised beds, an apple tree, and a small white pine that Henrik had planted when their son Anders was born in 1965.

There was a small headstone next to the pine tree.

The headstone said: “ANDERS HENRIK OLUFSEN-MACKIEWICZ — 1965-1974 — OUR DEAREST BOY.”

There was a second small headstone next to it.

It said: “HENRIK ANDERS OLUFSEN-MACKIEWICZ — 1938-2017 — BELOVED HUSBAND. FATHER. MASTER WOODWORKER.”

There was a third small headstone next to that.

It said: “MARIGOLD — 1995-2008 — BEST GOLDEN.”

We dug a fourth grave next to Marigold’s headstone.

Demetrius and Marcus did most of the digging. They were the strongest of us. The ground was cold and the topsoil was thin over Pennsylvania shale. It took them about 45 minutes to dig a proper grave.

We wrapped Buttercup in the blanket from Lazlo’s truck and a clean bedsheet Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen brought out from her linen closet — the same bedsheet she and Henrik had used on their honeymoon in 1959, which she had been saving for her own funeral. She said she had decided Buttercup needed it more.

She helped us lower him into the grave.

She knelt at the edge of the grave.

She prayed in Polish.

Aidan — our club chaplain — prayed in English.

He read from Ecclesiastes:

“To everything there is a season. A time to be born, and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.”

He prayed for Buttercup’s soul.

He prayed for Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen.

He prayed for Henrik and Anders and Marigold.

He prayed for us.

We filled the grave.

Stanislaw — our 81-year-old Polish-American oldest member — took off his old wool cap. He held it over his heart. He said, in Polish, “Pies. Spij dobrze.”

It means: “Good dog. Sleep well.”

We all said amen.

I want to tell you what happened the next Sunday.

April 16th, 2023.

It was Easter morning. Tomas called me on Saturday night and said, “Henrik. Tomorrow we are riding to Tionesta. We are going to check on Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen. It is Easter. She is alone. I cannot leave her alone on Easter. I am going to bring her a basket. Will you bring her flowers?”

I said, “Tomas. Yes.”

We rode to her farmhouse on Easter morning. Just Tomas and me on bikes. Lazlo drove his truck again with a small Easter basket Tomas had bought at the IGA in Warren — filled with chocolate, a small loaf of paska bread, two dyed eggs, and a single yellow tulip in a vase. I brought her a small bouquet of tulips from the florist in Sheffield.

We arrived at her farmhouse at 10:18 a.m.

She was on her front porch.

She was wearing a dark navy dress and a white cardigan and her small gold cross necklace. She was holding a Bible in Polish.

She saw us pull up.

She started crying.

We sat on her front porch with her for almost three hours.

She fed us small Polish Easter cookies and strong black coffee.

She told us about Henrik. She told us about Anders. She told us about Krakow. She told us about her sister Mrs. Anastasia Mackiewicz-Bouvier who had stayed in Poland and who had died in 2019.

We listened.

When we were leaving, Tomas said, “Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen. Would it be all right with you if we came back next Sunday? The club, I mean. Some of us. Just to check on you. We do not want to intrude. But — we would like to visit. If that is all right.”

Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen looked at Tomas.

She started crying again.

She said, in Polish, “Tomas. Proszę. Proszę przyjdź.”

It means: “Tomas. Please. Please come.”

We came back the next Sunday.

And the Sunday after that.

We came back every single Sunday for the next 103 weeks.

I want to tell you what those 103 Sundays looked like.

Most Sundays, three to five of us rode out. Sometimes the whole club came. Sometimes one or two of us came alone.

We brought groceries from Tops in Warren. We brought bread from the Polish bakery in Erie when one of us had a reason to drive out that way. We brought meat and produce. We brought flowers. We brought small things she mentioned she needed — a new can opener when hers broke, a small space heater for her bathroom when she said it was cold, a new pair of garden gloves for her spring planting in 2024.

She made us coffee.

She always made us coffee.

She fed us Polish food. Pierogi. Golabki. Bigos. Kielbasa from a Polish butcher in Erie that Stanislaw drove to once a month. Borscht in the winter. Fresh tomato soup with dill in the summer.

She told us stories.

She told us about her childhood in Krakow during and after the war. She had been 6 years old when the war ended. She remembered the Russian soldiers coming into Krakow. She had been hidden by her mother in a small wardrobe for three days. She told us, in Polish to Demetrius and Stanislaw, things she had never told anyone else. They translated some of it to the rest of us. They told us they did not translate all of it. They told us it was not for us to know.

We respected that.

She told us about her husband Henrik. A quiet Norwegian-American mechanic. A man who had built her a small woodworking shop behind the house in 1978. A man who had made her a wooden jewelry box on their 25th wedding anniversary in 1984 that she still kept on her bedroom dresser. A man who had cried for almost a year after Anders died in 1974. A man who had eventually learned how to laugh again because she had refused to leave him.

She told us about Anders.

She told us about Anders very quietly.

He had been their only child. He had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at age 7. He had died at age 9 in December of 1974 at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. She told us, on a Sunday in July of 2023, that she had carried Anders out of the hospital wrapped in a small white blanket on the morning of December 14th, 1974, and that Henrik had driven the two of them home to Tionesta on snowy roads.

She had not had another child.

She had wanted to.

She had not been able to.

She told us, on the front porch on that Sunday in July of 2023, that Buttercup and Marigold before him had been the only living creatures she had loved with the same intensity as Anders. That dogs had filled the place a son was supposed to fill. That she did not feel guilty about this anymore.

We listened.

We cried a lot on her front porch over those 104 Sundays.

Marcus — our youngest member at 53 — sometimes brought his 11-year-old daughter Mrs. Esperanza Strathmore-Bouvier-Mackiewicz on visits. Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen taught Esperanza how to make pierogi over four separate Sunday afternoons in the fall of 2023. Esperanza now makes pierogi at her family’s Christmas table every year. She uses Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen’s recipe.

Stanislaw — our 81-year-old Polish-American member — brought Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen recipes from his late wife Mrs. Persephone Lindqvist-Bouvier, who had passed in 2019 after 53 years of marriage. He brought her his wife’s handwritten recipe cards, one at a time, over the course of a year. She copied each one carefully into her own recipe book. By the end of 2023, she was cooking from his wife’s recipes regularly.

Stanislaw cried sometimes on her porch.

She cried with him.

Two elderly Polish-Americans, widow and widower, both born in the late 1930s, both with their wartime childhoods, both with their lifetime marriages, both with their dead spouses — sitting together on a front porch in rural Pennsylvania on Sunday afternoons in 2023 and 2024, drinking strong black coffee and talking about the people who had gone.

I want to tell you about the day Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen got sick.

Sunday, March 9th, 2025.

We rode out on a cool wet Pennsylvania March morning. Four of us — Tomas, me, Aidan, and Stanislaw. We arrived at her farmhouse at 11:14 a.m.

She did not come out to greet us.

She had always come out to greet us.

Tomas walked up to the front door. He knocked. No answer. He knocked again.

He tried the door. It was unlocked. He opened it.

Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen was lying on her living-room couch.

She was conscious.

She was very pale.

She was breathing shallowly.

She had a thermometer on the coffee table next to her.

It read 102.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

She said, “Tomas. I am sorry. I am not feeling well. I have been on the couch since Thursday.”

Tomas knelt down next to her.

He took her hand.

He said, “Imogen. We are calling an ambulance.”

She said, “Tomas. No. No hospital.”

He said, “Imogen. Yes. We are calling an ambulance. I am not asking. Aidan — call 911.”

Aidan called 911.

An ambulance from Warren General Hospital arrived at 11:42 a.m.

The paramedics — two young women named Ms. Brielle Hartwell-Castellanos, 27, and Ms. Saoirse Pridgeon-Mackiewicz, 31 — examined her.

She had pneumonia.

She had been suffering from it alone in her farmhouse since approximately Wednesday, March 5th. She had not called anyone. She had not been able to get to her phone in the kitchen because she had been too weak. She had been waiting for our Sunday visit.

She had been waiting since Wednesday afternoon.

Three and a half days.

She had known we were coming on Sunday.

She had not called us because she had not wanted to disturb our weekend.

Tomas cried on her front porch when the paramedics explained this to him.

I cried too.

So did Aidan.

So did Stanislaw — the 81-year-old man who had known her for almost two years.

She was admitted to Warren General Hospital that afternoon.

She was put on IV antibiotics for the pneumonia.

She also, in the course of her admission, was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer that she had not known she had. The cancer had been advancing for at least eighteen months. It explained her gradual weight loss over the past year. It explained why she had been more tired lately. It explained things she had not been able to explain to herself.

The oncologist — Dr. Bear Vance-Castellanos, 56 — told her, on the morning of Tuesday, March 11th, that she had approximately three to six weeks to live.

He told her this gently.

He told her there was nothing curative they could do.

He recommended hospice care.

She accepted hospice on the spot.

She asked the hospital social worker, Mrs. Imogen Pridgeon-Whitcombe, 44, to call her motorcycle club.

Mrs. Pridgeon-Whitcombe called Tomas that afternoon at 3:14 p.m.

Tomas was at home in Warren.

He drove to the hospital immediately.

He arrived at her hospital room at 4:02 p.m.

I followed him in my pickup truck at 5:30 p.m. with Aidan and Stanislaw.

Tomas was sitting in the chair next to her bed when we arrived.

She was holding his hand.

She had a small smile on her face.

She looked at us when we walked in.

She said, “Brothers. I am glad you are here. I have been telling Tomas. I have a thing to ask all of you.”

We pulled chairs around her bed.

We sat.

She looked at each of us.

She said, “Tomas. Henrik. Aidan. Stanislaw. I do not have very long. The doctor told me on Tuesday. I have made my peace. I want to ask you something. It is the only thing I am going to ask you.”

She paused.

She closed her eyes for a moment.

She opened them.

She said, “Brothers. I want to be buried at home. With Henrik. With Anders. With Marigold and Buttercup. In the garden. I have arranged it with the township. I have arranged it with the funeral home in Tionesta. I have arranged it with Father Demitri at Holy Family. I have arranged it with my lawyer Mr. Lazlo Bouvier-Strathmore in Warren who has my will. It is all arranged.”

She paused.

She said, “Brothers. I want you to be my pallbearers. I want six of you. I want you to carry me from the funeral home in Tionesta to my garden. I want Henrik to be in his suit. I want Anders’s photograph to be next to my casket. I want Marigold’s and Buttercup’s collars in the casket with me. It is all written down. My lawyer has it.”

She paused.

She started crying.

She said, “Brothers. The other thing. The only other thing. I have a request that — that I do not know if you can do. I want to ask anyway. If you cannot, I understand. I will not be hurt.”

Tomas said, “Imogen. Anything. Ask. Anything.”

She took a slow breath.

She said, “Brothers. I want you to take care of my home. After I am gone. I do not want it to be sold to strangers. I have left the farmhouse to my late sister Anastasia’s grandson — Mr. Demetrius Mackiewicz-Bouvier, who is 33 years old and who lives in Krakow with his wife and small daughter — but he does not want it. He has told me, very gently, that he cannot move to America to keep a farmhouse. He has agreed to sell it. He has agreed to sell it to the buyer I choose. Brothers — I want — I want one of you to buy it. I want a member of your club to live in my home. To take care of Henrik’s woodworking shop. To tend the garden. To visit Anders’s headstone. To keep the place I have lived for 66 years. The place where my husband died. The place where my dogs are buried. I want — I want my home to belong to one of you.”

She paused.

She said, “I will sell it to you for what my husband paid for it in 1959. Seven thousand four hundred dollars. Cash. That is what I want. That is what is fair. I have written it down in my will. Demetrius has agreed.”

The room was silent for almost a minute.

Then Marcus Strathmore-Bouvier — our 53-year-old youngest member, who had been listening from the doorway because he had just arrived — walked into the room.

He had his daughter Esperanza, age 12, with him.

He had taken her out of school to come visit Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen.

Marcus knelt down at the side of the bed.

He took Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen’s hand.

He said, “Imogen. My wife Lourdes and I will buy it. We will buy it for $7,400. We will sell our trailer in Tidioute. We will move our family to your home. Esperanza will grow up there. I will work on the woodworking shop. My wife will tend your garden. We will visit Anders. We will visit Henrik. We will visit Marigold. We will visit Buttercup. We will visit you. Imogen — we will keep your home. We promise.”

Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen looked at Marcus.

She looked at Esperanza.

Esperanza was crying.

Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen said to Esperanza, “Sweetheart. I taught you how to make pierogi. Are you going to teach your own daughter someday?”

Esperanza said, “Yes, Mrs. Imogen. I am.”

Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen said, “Sweetheart. Then I am at peace. The pierogi go on.”

She squeezed Marcus’s hand.

She said, “Marcus. Yes. Yes. Sell it to you for $7,400. Done.”

Marcus cried at the side of her bed for almost twenty minutes.

Esperanza cried with him.

So did we.

I want to tell you about Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen’s last Sunday with us.

Sunday, March 16th, 2025.

She had been transferred from Warren General Hospital to the hospice wing on the previous Thursday. Her room was small but private. It had a large window that looked out at a small garden the hospital had built specifically for hospice patients.

We brought her to the window at 11:14 a.m.

Six of us — Tomas, me, Aidan, Stanislaw, Marcus, and Demetrius Mackiewicz-Whitcombe.

We had brought small things from her farmhouse — her gold cross necklace that she had been wearing every day since 1946, her small Polish prayer book, a small framed photograph of her wedding day in 1959, a small framed photograph of Anders at age 8 holding their first Golden Retriever Marigold as a puppy in their kitchen, and a small ceramic bowl of fresh paska bread that Stanislaw’s late wife’s recipe Esperanza had baked the night before.

We put everything on her bedside table.

She held the photograph of Anders for almost an hour.

She was quiet.

She was peaceful.

She was not in pain — the hospice nurse Ms. Penelope Castellanos-Vance, 39 — had managed her pain carefully with low-dose morphine.

At 2:14 p.m., she fell asleep.

We sat with her while she slept.

She woke at 4:42 p.m.

She looked at us.

She said, “Brothers. I think it is time. I love you. I love you all. Tell Marcus to take care of my Esperanza. Tell my pierogi to go on. Tell the garden to forgive me for not being able to plant tomatoes this spring.”

She smiled.

She closed her eyes.

She did not wake up again.

She passed away peacefully at 6:47 p.m. on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025 — 17 days after our last Sunday visit.

Marcus and his wife Lourdes were at her bedside when she went.

So was Tomas.

She was 86 years old.

I want to tell you about her funeral.

Saturday, April 5th, 2025.

Father Demitri Castellanos-Pawlowski, 73, the pastor at Holy Family Catholic Church in Tionesta, celebrated her funeral Mass at 10:00 a.m. The church was full. It seated 247 people. Standing room only.

Six of us carried her casket.

Tomas. Me. Aidan. Stanislaw. Marcus. Demetrius Mackiewicz-Whitcombe.

She had a simple oak casket — built by Mr. Anders Lindqvist-Whitcombe, 67, a Tionesta cabinetmaker who had been Henrik’s woodworking apprentice in the 1980s. He had refused payment.

She wore a dark navy dress, her small gold cross necklace, and her white cardigan.

She had Buttercup’s collar in her hands.

She had Marigold’s collar tucked into her left sleeve.

She had a small folded piece of yellow legal pad paper safety-pinned to her cardigan that said, in her handwriting: “Henrik. Anders. I am coming home. Imogen.”

We carried her from the church to her farmhouse — a 1.4-mile procession. A small motorcade. The hearse first. Then Marcus’s pickup truck with Esperanza and Lourdes. Then 19 motorcycles in formation behind them. Then about 80 cars and trucks from the community of Tionesta following at the rear.

We buried her in her garden at 1:14 p.m. Next to Henrik. Next to Anders. Next to Marigold. Next to Buttercup.

We placed a small headstone next to Henrik’s.

It said: “IMOGEN MACKIEWICZ-OLUFSEN — 1939-2025 — DEAREST WIFE. BELOVED MOTHER. PIEROGI TEACHER. THE PIEROGI GO ON.”

Stanislaw — the 81-year-old Polish-American who had cried on her porch with her two summers earlier — was the last one at her grave.

He stayed for almost an hour after the rest of us had walked back to the farmhouse.

He sang her a small Polish funeral song from his childhood in Pittsburgh in the 1940s.

He cried.

We let him.

I want to write down a few things before I finish.

The first thing. Marcus, Lourdes, and Esperanza Strathmore-Bouvier-Mackiewicz officially closed on Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen’s farmhouse on Friday, May 16th, 2025 — six weeks after her funeral. They paid $7,400 in cash to her estate. Her great-nephew Mr. Demetrius Mackiewicz-Bouvier flew in from Krakow to sign the closing paperwork. He cried when he met Esperanza. He told her she was now the keeper of his great-aunt’s pierogi. He brought her a small Polish wooden rolling pin from Krakow as a gift. She uses it every Sunday afternoon when she makes pierogi with her mother.

The second thing. Marcus has restored Henrik’s woodworking shop. He uses it on weekends to make small furniture pieces. He has been learning carpentry from YouTube videos and from Mr. Anders Lindqvist-Whitcombe, the Tionesta cabinetmaker who built her casket. He has built one piece so far — a small wooden bench, painted forest green — that now sits next to the four headstones in the garden. The bench is for visitors.

The third thing. The Allegheny Iron Brothers Motorcycle Club still rides to the farmhouse every single Sunday. We do not call it visiting Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen anymore. We call it visiting Marcus and his family. But we always walk over to the four headstones first. Esperanza always meets us with a tray of fresh-baked Polish cookies. Stanislaw — now 83 — always sits on the green bench for a few minutes alone. He tells us afterward that he and Imogen are catching up.

The fourth thing. Buttercup is buried next to Marigold and next to Anders and next to Henrik and now next to Imogen in the garden of the small white-painted farmhouse on Cherry Run Road outside Tionesta, Pennsylvania. All four dogs and the family they belonged to. Together. In the ground they tended together for 66 years.

The garden produces tomatoes every summer.

Esperanza eats one in honor of Imogen every August.

I want to end with one more thing.

I want to tell you about a small framed photograph that now hangs in the kitchen of the farmhouse where Imogen Mackiewicz-Olufsen lived for 66 years and where Marcus, Lourdes, and Esperanza Strathmore-Bouvier-Mackiewicz live now.

It is a photograph from April 9th, 2023.

It was taken by Ms. Penelope Hartwell-Castellanos, a 28-year-old amateur photographer from Tidioute who had been walking her Labrador in Tionesta Riverfront Park that morning. She had seen us sitting in the circle around Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen as Dr. Pawlowski-Mackiewicz administered the sedative to Buttercup. She had taken one careful photograph from approximately 60 feet away with a telephoto lens. She had not approached us. She had given the photograph to Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen anonymously through the township office two weeks later. Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen had figured out who Penelope was about a month after that. She had invited Penelope to her farmhouse for tea. They had become friends. Penelope had visited her many times over the following two years.

The photograph shows eight bikers in a circle in the grass.

Tomas. Me. Anders Castellanos-Olufsen. Demetrius Mackiewicz-Whitcombe. Stanislaw Lindqvist-Mackiewicz. Lazlo Pridgeon-Bouchard. Marcus Strathmore-Bouvier. Aidan Olufsen-Castellanos.

We are sitting on the spring grass. Our cuts are folded over our arms. Our helmets are at our sides. None of us are looking at the camera. We are all looking at the bench under the maple tree.

On the bench is Mrs. Mackiewicz-Olufsen.

She is on the grass next to the bench.

She has Buttercup’s head in her lap.

She is leaning down over him.

She is kissing his head.

Buttercup is gone.

She does not yet know we are about to ask if we can come back next Sunday.

She does not yet know that we will come back for 104 Sundays.

She does not yet know that on Sunday number 102 we will sit at her bedside in a hospice room and ask her what she needs from us.

The photograph is hanging on the kitchen wall.

It is the first thing you see when you walk in.

Below it is a small brass plaque that Esperanza made in shop class at Tionesta Middle School this past September.

The plaque says: “THE SUNDAY THAT BECAME ALL THE SUNDAYS.”

If you see an elderly person sitting alone in a park with their dog — please stop. Please ask them how they are. Please offer to call someone. Please sit with them for a minute. Please understand that the elderly person might not have anyone else to ask for help that day. They might have been alone for years. They might be waiting for someone to ask. It might be you.

If you ride a motorcycle — please understand that the leather and the beard and the loud pipes do not have to scare anyone. A 71-year-old Polish-American Vietnam veteran in a Harley vest sitting on a park bench next to an 84-year-old Polish-American widow speaking to her in their grandparents’ language is one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed in my life. The leather is not the story. The leather is the costume. The story is whoever you are inside the leather, and whether you are willing to stop the bike when you see someone who needs you.

If you have loved a dog who has gone — please know that dogs do not stop being loved when they are buried. Buttercup is still loved by 19 bikers in northwestern Pennsylvania. He has been dead for over two and a half years. He is loved more this Sunday than he was last Sunday. He is loved more this Sunday than he was the Sunday he died. Love does not go in the ground with the dog. The ground holds the dog. The love stays above ground. The love spreads.

I am 67 years old.

I have been a member of the Allegheny Iron Brothers Motorcycle Club for 18 years.

I have been a biker for 41 years.

Mrs. Imogen Mackiewicz-Olufsen taught me, in 104 Sundays on her front porch, more about how to be a man than any drill sergeant ever taught me.

I will be grateful to her until I am in the ground next to her.

The pierogi go on.

If this story moved you, follow the page — there are more like Imogen and Buttercup and Henrik and Anders and the 104 Sundays I haven’t told yet.