Rest in Peace Sweet Pamela

Sedona, Arizona---I glared at a FaceBook news update trying to understand. A post had come through about one of my college roommates. It showed her picture and the comment read Rest in Peace. My whole body became stiff.   I clicked over to her wall hoping it meant someone else.  In disbelief I read one after the other; the posts were saying the unthinkable. She had passed away.

No, no, no, no, no. It couldn’t be. She had just texted me. I looked again, the text read April 29. It said: “Drive to Alaska.”

After one of the best days I’ve had on this coast to coast road trip I went to my hotel room to decompress and go to bed. It has been my normal routine to check emails, messages and FaceBook before I go to sleep. And this is how I got the news. It is the first time FaceBook has been the barer of news that normally would be given through a phone call, something a little more personal. Is this the future? That now we have to deal with important points in life though the internet?

I looked back as far as I could on her FB wall. First, a series of people telling her to fight---and something about a stroke. Another set saying it was not good and for everyone to pray. Then a series of posts that all said how she would be missed, recalling memories…

Memories. The first time I met Pam she was on her hands and knees installing tile on the floor to an apartment at Kansas State University. My high school friend, Deanna, and I had driven in from our hometown mid-summer to meet her. She popped up on her feet and explained that she had talked the landlord into letting her finish the renovation to this basement apartment for a reduction in her rent. She laughed, throwing her head back and admitted that she had known nothing about tiling a floor but that she figured it out.

I was going to be a junior and my friend Deanna and I were both transferring to K-State in the Fall.  We had looked and looked for a place to live. The dorms were full and housing was limited that year.  So we had the idea to put an ad in the local newspaper---except, we decided, it had to be special and stand out. So we wrote a lengthy ad saying how lucky someone would be to have us as tenants and listing our virtues.  At the end it said “P.S. A pup tent will do in a pinch.”

Well Pamela thought it was hysterical and called us. The rest is history. We moved in a month later and lived in that basement apartment for a year. Deanna and I learned quickly that this 20 year old was a steamroller. She would make up her mind about something and with all conviction and determination is was so. She was boisterous and loud. She was sweet and caring.

This was the age that we were all still finding ourselves. She was a little bit country, I was a little bit rock and roll and Deanna was Switzerland. Both strong willed Pam and I would butt heads often and have big disagreements. And usually over a big bowl of popcorn, Deanna would reason with both of us and we would come to a compromise. Laughing years later at all the drama, Pam made sure to stay in contact as the years passed. We both knew important details about our pasts and there was, albeit not typical, a bond there.

We also learned that she would do just about anything for anyone. It was Pam that was my biggest advocate when something bad happened to me at school, standing guard over me and acting as my contact to the police. She had also stood up to a cocky football quarterback who had hurt another friend by having a shirt made (and wearing it) that said “Who the hell is Darrell Dicky?”

She was a Pit Bull on the outside and a Labrador on the inside.

We also learned details of her childhood. Let’s just say she came from a very, very poor family of six living in a small farmhouse that for the early years, did not have in-door plumbing. She had an ill mother that meant Pamela spent a lot of time worrying about and helping with her two little brothers and little sister. Her father, who to me looked a little like Santa Claus and you just wanted to hug him, was a hardworking and gregarious man. She absolutely adored her Dad.  This all laid the groundwork to Pam being so determined to work hard, find a way…ANY way to not be poor and that nothing was impossible.

That family farm was really special to her. I think, in one way a part of her soul will always be there.

As college friends do, we all went our separate ways. Deanna to a farm in Colorado, Pam to Alaska (of all places I thought!) and me to create a life in Florida.  The three of us reunited in 1995 when Deanna and I took a 2 week trip to Alaska. She was married at the time with about a two year old son. Let’s just say, what we observed was not a good marriage. She did not deserve to be screamed at. It was so verbally abusive that I had to leave the house and cry on the front porch. We begged her to make some changes but she was stubborn, and like so many women who just want to be loved, she wanted it to work out.

Things changed and she was alone with two children but she ALWAYS held her head high and made a new life. Our conversations became fewer and farther apart.  Her ex and Pam had visited me once in Florida and oddly,  one week before I left for this trip, she called me and left a message that she was thinking of coming to Florida. We texted back and forth and I explained that I was leaving for three months.

Then:
Another text from Pam: "I’m not coming to Florida. Call me." 

I thought: I’m busy, I’ll call from the road.

Another text from Pam: "When are you going to call me?!

I thought: When I get to California, I’ll call her.

Another text from Pam: "Drive to Alaska."                  
I thought: I need to call Pam, I’ll do it as soon as…(fill in five excuses here)

But ten days later she was gone.

Five times from Florida to here in Sedona, I was prompted with her strongly coming to my mind. Each time I put it off for later because…”What’s the difference if I call her now or in a week or two?” I had thought.

I believe that when people strongly come to mind, it is a prompting from God. I believe this yet I ignored it. I can never have that phone conversation now. She’s gone. I can’t believe it.  That sweet soul, that only wanted to please and be loved.

Don’t ignore the prompts. Don’t make excuses.

Pamela died the day before her 51^st birthday and I can’t call her back.

Note: I talked to a friend of hers in Alaska. She described Pam as having many, many friends from all walks of life in Anchorage. That there had been a steady stream of visitors to her room from hobos to a state congressman, and knowing how politically active she was, I am not suprised. I also know there was a boyfriend, a man that truly loved her. To him I say my deepest condolences and gratitude. To her two young sons, let her strength now be yours to hold on to. And to her sweet sister, the nurse: she was SO very proud of you. To her brothers, one who visited me in Daytona long, long ago…she talked about you guys like a mom brags about her kids, she was very proud that you were family. She is depending on all of you now.  And to all those friends that were her friends after her Kansas life, thank you for accepting her and loving her. She did know how to bring the sparkle to any room and YOU know I mean that literally and figuratively!