When Westbrook resident Lloyd Storey left to go to his camp in Northeast Carry on Moosehead Lake late last month, his wife, Wanda, and daughter, Sonja Terlaje, knew it probably would be the last time they would see him alive.
But knowing he wanted to go one last time to the cabin he had built by hand, they gave him their blessing.
Their instincts were correct. Storey died there Oct. 29 at the age of 64, after a long fight with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the immune system cells in bone marrow. He was a well-known businessman in Westbrook as the owner Storey’s Greenhouse and a longtime member of the fire department, but also was known for his independence, resilience to pain and determination to live his life the way he wanted to.
Storey was diagnosed with multiple myeloma last February, but he had been suffering from the cancer for a long time before then. The disease had wasted his body in a way that Terlaje described as “hell” to watch.
“It was hard to watch him struggle,” Terlaje said. “To watch someone who is so independent, to not be able to do something himself…”
Born March 11, 1943, in Scarborough, he graduated from Scarborough High School. In 1965, at age 22, he joined the Westbrook Fire Department, which he served for 25 years, retiring in 1990 as a captain.
While the incurable disease got the better of Storey in the end, he was not one to easily succumb to pain or challenges.
Rick O’Donal, a long-time friend, recalled a time when Storey had tried to grease a fan that hadn’t been working properly at his greenhouse. When it still wasn’t spinning fast enough, he tried to give its rotors a boost with his bare hand. The fan chopped off a piece of his thumb.
O’Donal and others told him he needed to go to the hospital.
“Naw, just give me a Band-Aid. I’m fine,” he said.
“Anybody else would have dropped,” O’Donal said.
Jeff Gallant, who has worked for him for years, recalled the day O’Donal dropped to the ground at Storey’s Greenhouse from a heart attack. He and Storey did chest compressions to revive him.
“We just got done doing compressions on Rick. Storey turned to me and said, ‘Well, nothing we can do now. Let’s get back to work,'” said Gallant.
Terlaje said he was a loving man, but “he wasn’t delicate about it.”
When Storey went to his camp for the last time, he went with a group of close friends and family, including Gallant, friend Bob Remick; sons Elliott, Zach and Michael; and Elliott’s friend Josh Brown. Storey had just returned from Zach’s wedding in California.
“He definitely went out on his own terms,” said Brown.
Terlaje and Wanda Storey called the camp one last time to tell Storey all the things they felt, and though Storey’s illness had affected his mind and he couldn’t communicate with them, Elliott told his sister that his father had been tightly squeezing his hand as they spoke with him on the phone.
“As it was about the time to turn in for the night from hunting, he turned in, well, I guess he turned in for eternity,” Terlaje said.
Greenhouse owner known for resilience (photo slideshow)
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