Kimberly Ferguson

Kim Ferguson grew up as an only child. Somewhere along the way, she seems to have forgotten how to be one. Her circle simply kept getting wider.

It began in Tatnuck, where Kim grew up with parents who worked, volunteered, and valued community. Summers meant the Cape, boating and extended family. 

She stayed close to home for college, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Worcester State University and later advanced graduate work at Fitchburg State University. She became a speech pathologist, got married, had a son she adores, divorced, and after a long and winding road, married her husband Jay a few years ago. Today, between them, there are five children and 11 grandchildren. 

For an only child, Kim has gathered quite a tribe. There are seven close girlfriends whose group texts are always active, who swap book recommendations and travel together. There are friends made at work who became real-life friends, spouses included. There are dear neighbors, like Kitty, who Kim describes simply as “the salt of the earth.”

And there is Jen and Hannah. When Kim’s mother died after a long struggle with dementia, Kim wanted a quiet burial at the Cape beside her father, who died when Kim was only 22 years old. No public ceremony. Just immediate family. But when Kim arrived, Jen and Hannah were there.

“They came because they wanted to be there,” Kim remembers. Although the service was private, they understood that being family means showing up anyway. Today, Kim recalls this as the kindest thing anyone has ever done for her, and she calls them “my sisters.”

When asked what matters most in life, Kim responds without pause or doubt, “How you treat people.” She is quick to add, “That means everyone from the person who picks up your trash to the people you love most. I just think being kind and treating people right is something that you carry with you.” It is this simple, well-lived philosophy that explains Kim’s ever-widening circle.

There are wonderfully ordinary things inside Kim’s circle. She loves historical fiction and reads every day. She will not fall asleep without reading at least a few pages. She loves travel, music, the water, and time with family. She adores Hattie, her black Lab, a service-dog-in-training who did not make the cut but landed exactly where she belonged.

Kim is her most authentic self in the quiet: at the beach with a book or simply spending time with Jay and Hattie.

Despite traveling widely, Kim calls herself a homebody. Her life’s geography remains remarkably small: Tatnuck, Holden, summers on the Cape and now time in New Hampshire. She has a deep affection for Wachusett Mountain and the Old Mill restaurant that hold precious childhood memories. “I like what I know and what I’m comfortable with,” she says. Asked why she loves her hometown of Holden she reflects, “It is simple: when people are in need, people help.”

Perhaps that is another way the circle widens, not through grand gestures, but by noticing who needs us and showing up.

Now, at 59, Kim is about to widen the circle once again. For 16 years, the title State Representative has accompanied her everywhere. “It can sometime be difficult,” she admits, “to separate the title from the woman carrying it.” As she prepares to leave office, she does not have a grand plan for what comes next.

“I’m learning more about me,” she says. “I really am trying to figure out me.” 

There is something wonderfully fitting about that. An only child who spent a lifetime expanding her definition of family now has room to discover who else and what else might enter the circle. That is how we also build a community, drawing the circle wider, making room for people who become ours.

This place. These people. All of us within the circle.

Pam Reidy is a writer, educator, and interfaith minister whose work has long centered on people, community, and the stories that shape our lives. In This Place, These People, Pam turns her attention to the people who make the Wachusett community what it is, sharing stories of their lives, values, hopes, and connections, and reminding us that every ordinary life has a story worth telling. If you have someone you think should be featured in This Place, These People, please send your ideas to the Editor, Martha Akstin, at [email protected]