The minute I met Doris I knew she could dance circles around me. For the last 16 years she was an irrepressible Ballard resident, whether baking in the wee hours or making new friends at the bus stop.

She was a grandmother who told her granddaughter, “If you’ve got ‘em, flaunt ‘em,” and claimed to be praying to meet just one good man. When she awakened once to five firefighters surrounding her bed she didn’t miss a beat before saying, “I prayed for one but you sent me five.”

Finally, it was her heart that could not keep pace with Doris.

She may have been joking about dying in the arms of a firefighter, but she essentially got her wish after a final 911 call early on Sept. 22.

Doris Carolyn Parker was no stranger to the firefighters and medics of Station 18 on Market Street. Originally from a farm in Idaho, Doris moved to Seattle about 16 years ago to be closer to her daughter and the medical support in Seattle.

Diagnosed with diabetes in her 30’s Doris had a kidney transplant 15 years ago, thriving well beyond the 10-year post-transplant average survival.

To know Doris was to have very little sense of her health problems, even when she used a motorized wheel chair or needed dark glasses to protect her eyes. She was legally blind but an avid quilter.

She suffered foot problems but never gave up high heels or shoes that were just plain fun. She was always up for any adventure, aerobics at the pool, missionary work in Nicaragua, babysitting without notice. If you didn’t reach her for a while it might turn out she’d had a blood sugar problem and been in the hospital, or else she’d been out of the country.

She raised three children in Idaho while working two jobs and going to school full-time. She graduated from college the year before her oldest child graduated from high school.

Once, in a snow storm, she took the kids sleigh-riding at midnight and faced down a policeman who asked the diminutive red-head, “Does your mother know where you are?”

Doris taught grade school in Idaho and New Mexico; teaching children was her calling.

When I first met Doris she was on the lookout for men’s neckties and fabric for her quilts at garage sales, zipping by motor. A year later there was no scooter.

Showing off sparkling shoes, Doris informed me that she’d moved to a second floor apartment at Golden Sunset, where there was no elevator. The scooter had to go.

Another time I saw a bulletin board notice, “Walker for Sale – Call Doris.” When I next ran into Doris (working a 16-hour day at the polls) she scoffed at the idea that I’d thought it was hers.

Even if people didn’t always know her name, Doris’ absence will be noted on Metro buses, at the Ballard Pool, at Little Coney’s, at Café Besalu, at her church and at the Ballard Senior Center. She had red hair, bright blue eyes and her clothes and quilts were equally bright; her outlook always optimistic.

She laughed off the emergency calls and concerns about living alone. She went flying with her dear friend Fritz and to exercise class with Judy.

Doris told her children that she wanted to die sewing. Indeed the sewing machine light was on and there was fabric ready to be fed underneath the needle when her daughter Cindy returned to her mother’s apartment from the hospital.

Doris did crafts at the senior center nearby and when a quilting store opened just blocks away she considered it yet another blessing, along with every grandchild, every trip taken, every gospel song, every good book and her many, many friends.

The memorial for Doris on the second floor of Anthony’s at Shilshole was standing room only. There were white caps on Puget Sound and sea lions were swimming around the fish nets set on tribal lands for the salmon run.

Her stalwart friend Fritz stood in front of funeral wreath of flowers that proclaimed, “To Doris, Love Fritz,” and said, “She couldn’t see well at all, but she could always see what you didn’t want her to. I’ll miss you.”

Doris will be missed by those who knew her name, and many who didn’t. She’ll be missed at Fire Station 18; every time they had been called to her apartment before they had been able to be her saviors. This last time they couldn’t get her heart to start again, the absence of that heartbeat affects the entire pulse of Ballard, whether you knew Doris personally, or not.

Peggy Sturdivant can be reached atlargeinballard@yahoo.com.