As a budding nurse, youth diving coach and nanny, Krit Kearins showed a devotion to children. Now, more than a year after her death, she has published a book for them.
Five hundred copies of "Surf's Up, Penny!" arrived Monday on Dove Lane, at the home of Krit Kearins' mother, Pam Sheehy. The family decided to publish the children's story about a young surfer after finding it in Kearins' apartment after her death. Profits from the book will support a scholarship in Kearins' name.
"It's just to get it out to as many people as possible, so that they will know about Krit. It will keep her legacy alive," said Sheehy.
Kristin "Krit" Kearins, a former standout Andover High School diver and gymnast on state championship teams, died in September 2008 at age 26 after a bicycle accident. After earning a degree in early childhood education, Kearins decided to work as a clinical nurse's assistant in the emergency room at Children's Hospital.
To Sheehy's knowledge, Kearins had never written anything like this before. But her brother Billy found it scratched in pencil on the back of a Children's Hospital form while he and his sister Mia were going through Kearins' apartment following the accident.
"[It] looked as though she had had an idea in her head and grabbed a piece of paper in a spare moment to get it down so she wouldn't forget it," wrote Billy Kearins, who lives in Copenhagen. "Many of the things I write down never amount to anything, but I was determined that Krit's fleeting thoughts on this scrap of paper would be immortalized."
The story returned with him to Denmark, and in June, he surprised the family with five copies of Kearins' story, illustrated by friend Frits Ahlefeldt-Laurvig. Shortly thereafter, Sheehy said she decided to pursue publishing it on a larger scale.
Sheehy said her daughter learned to surf while living in Australia after college, and continued to surf in Gloucester with Billy Kearins when she returned to the states.
"I used to love surfing with Krit because it was never serious.¬�If we got good waves, great.¬�But if the waves were small and barely ridable or huge and scary we managed to have just as much fun. Krit was always good for a funny wipeout or two (or three) every session," says Billy Kearins. "At those moments, when her head popped up from the beneath the surface, pony tail swinging around, ear to ear grin on her face - that was when I laughed and smiled the most."
Those who knew Kearins seem to always talk about her positive outlook. Family and friends of Krit Kearins helped launch the Krit Classic 5-kilometer road race earlier this year. Such was Kearins' effect in town during her life that more than 1,500 people walked or ran it.
Annie's Shoes, a California-based company is selling a shoe in Krit's name. Jill Oppenheim, a friend of Krit's since elementary school, has an aunt who works for the company, said Sheehy.
The book is the latest way that those who loved Krit plan to keep her memory alive.
It's already proven effective.
When the man who delivered the books to Sheehy on Monday heard the story behind "Surf's Up, Penny!" he plunked down $19.95 for the book, said Sheehy.
"You can only cry and visit a grave so much before you realize that it doesn't bring them back. But a book, this book, is a happy tribute to a hell of a kid. It gives you, or anyone, that may or may not know Krit an insight into what went on inside her head," says Billy Kearins.¬�"She loved surfing, teaching, and kids - and that's exactly what this book tells the readers.¬�I hope it gathers a big following because it is pure and simple - something that is hard to find these days."
Copies of "Surf's Up, Penny!" will be available for $19.95 at the Andover Bookstore in Olde Andover Village, 89R Main St.; by visiting kritclassic.com, or by sending an e-mail to surfpenny@hotmail.com.
