Requiem for Pat Nadurak

I haven’t been in frequent touch with Pat for many years. We were in frequent contact in Vermont, when we lived a mile apart, and were delighted to find kindred spirits in the frozen north. We have communicated only by letter and phone in the 18 years since. Pat and Chris had moved on, too, but whenever we did talk on the phone, we spoke as if we still lived a mile apart, and would likely see each other the next day. Pat was that way. Immediate, open, friendly, and once she counted you as a friend, eternally faithful to that bond. Distances didn’t change that. Even time didn’t change that. We lived parallel lives, running in parallel paths, and checking with each other over the hedgerows as we ran, but checking only confirmed the fact that we were keeping up with each other, we were still there. We always just picked up where we left off, never missing a beat, as if we had just returned to Vermont from a couple of days out of town. I have a very few friends like that, who never fade away despite distance and time. Not enough, never enough. And now one has faded away. I am checking over my hedgerow, and Pat is not there. Still, as for the friendship, nothing has changed. She will ever be immediate, open, friendly, eternally faithful to our bond, and I am pleased and honored that she counted us as friends. I am sure that I could tell her of my latest travails, and she would provide the saucy, sardonic reflection that she always did, and I would feel better. I could tell her that the world is and emptier place without her, and she would have a saucy, wise answer for that. And she’d be right, too. We will miss her from a distance. We remember the wide, open face, the sidelong look, the arched eyebrow, the enormous welcoming smile, the “can do anything” approach to every problem, and the energy, the boundless, infectious energy. Farewell, old friend and dear. Don’t laugh at us too much while we grieve, and then try to move on.