For the last year, Sylvie Turner has watched helplessly as her best friend of 40 years seemingly slipped away, losing all hope, including the will to live.
“She’s been in her bed and not wanting to do anything, not wanting to try,” said Turner of 74-year-old Mary Mendez.
“For the longest time, she just wanted to die; she didn’t want to be bothered with anything.”
Mary Mendez wasn’t always this way – far from it. The Key Largo woman was known for her adventurous spirit and zest for life. She had an unwavering love of the mesmerizing Florida Keys sunsets.
Mary’s love affair with sunsets started out in the 1970s when she moved to the Keys from Rhode Island and lived in a tent at America Outdoors Campground, then located at MM 97 on the bayside. (The campground closed years ago and the property is now the site of Playa Largo Resort and Spa.)
Along the way, Mary cultivated long-lasting friendships, many forged over conversations and laughter while watching the sun sink into the bay.
After the campground closed, Mary’s snowbird friends kept returning to Key Largo year after year and would stay at Bay Harbor Lodge & Coconut Bay Resort. During those visits, the good friends would catch up while watching the magnificent sunsets on Florida Bay.
Mary raised three children along the way and worked at the Key Largo Post Office for 25 years. She was very involved in the community and lived up to her nickname “Mangrove Mary” for her dedication to ridding a mangrove swamp near her home of garbage and debris.
But in 2020, Mary started down a slow road of decline. She was diagnosed with temporal arteritis; two years later came the devastating news that she had Parkinson’s disease, a progressive disorder that affects the nervous system.
“She has Parkinson’s, which takes away your desire to want to do anything,” said Mary’s daughter, Melanie Valle, a local occupational therapist.
Valle said things took a turn for the worse when her mother fell a year ago and broke her hip, rendering the once vivacious Key Largo resident wheelchair-bound and feeling hopeless.
Mary is now under the care of Chapters Hospice. Valle said recently hospice staff informed her they had a wish foundation that could grant her mother a wish.
“Hospice was a catalyst in telling us they had this wish money,” explained Valle.
Valle knew exactly what needed to be done; she needed to get her mother out to see the sunset.
She reached out to Bay Harbor Lodge & Coconut Bay Resort, the owners were more than happy to provide a discounted handicap-accessible room to give her mother a weekend full of friends, family and of course, sunsets. Valle said Bay Harbor manager, Jonathon Laron, with whom she went to school, rolled out the red carpet for her mother. A huge bouquet of flowers was waiting in the room for Mary, along with a handwritten letter welcoming her back to the resort. The fridge was stocked with Mary’s favorite fruit and the morning scone flavors were named in Mary’s honor, Mary Berry Mango and Mary’s Mixed Berries.
“It really touched her heart. She kept telling people who visited that it’s paid for, it’s free,” recalled Valle of her mother’s special weekend and the people who made it happen.
Valle said Chapters Hospice paid for the stay at Bay Harbor Lodge and the community also stepped up to help out in extremely moving ways.
Mary received a complimentary facial and haircut from Melissa Woods, the owner of Green House Salon in Key Largo. Doc’s Diner provided Mary’s favorite soups and a total stranger, who learned of the weekend plans, offered to drive Mary to the resort in her handicap-accessible van.
“We like helping people, we’re in the Keys and we’re supposed to help each other,” said Luz Levine, who offered to drive Mary to the resort in the van she uses to transport her disabled husband.
Over the two days spent at Bay Harbor Lodge, Mary reconnected with family and friends.
“We took my mom down to the water both nights for sunset. We carried her like queen style,” said Valle.
Best friend Sylvie Turner brought a chocolate cake for Mary and said she loved every bit of it.
Turner says the weekend was transformative for her friend.
“I feel like her appetite for life is coming back,” said Turner. “It was just amazing to see Mary out of the house and in front of a sunset, which she hasn’t seen in over a year,” she added.
When asked about her weekend, surrounded by family and friends and magical sunsets, Mary Mendez responded in a very soft, sweet voice.
“It was fabulous. It couldn’t be better.”
