More on Pam...

In response to a comment Lisa made.. This started as a response in the comments section, but I think it deserves its own post...

Lisa,

You are right -- there is something poetic, beautiful, brilliant and moving about writing your name in the sky before you die. That was Pam -- she was a full person with all of those qualities. She could also be prosaic, ugly, stupid and obstinte... much like the rest of us -- only magnified.

I often wonder if she didn't know her time here was short...

She made sure I was with the right guy.... (even though we'd been married 11 years at the time she died... she had to check..)

Not long before she died, Pam and I had a discussion about ourselves and our spouses. What would be a 10 minute phone call with someone else turned into a talk-a-thon with Pam. We'd usually split the costs by occasionally haning up and the other person would call back..

In one of our last discussions, Pam wanted to know about hubby -- whether he was the sort of impulsive and action oriented person she was. She noticed that her own hubby, M was calm and centered like I tend to be -- and she wanted to make sure that Jason wasn't like that... calm, centered and tending toward stodgy... Those of you who know hubby in real life won't at all be surprised that I told her he isnt calm and centered like I am.

Pam wanted to make sure that I'd spend my life with someone who would challenge me and make me go out and DO things.. not just plod along at my own calm pace. Once she had that information, she was satisfied.

She planned her own funeral...

She and her hubby M had long conversations that would start with, "If we died snowed in to this cabin, do you want to know what I'd do with your body??" The answers would usually begin in an outrageous fashion... like, 'I'd cut you up and make stew out of you,' or ' I'd throw you into that snowbank and let the wolves get you -- and take pictures with this camera'. But they would then devlove into discussions about what they wanted at their funerals.

Pam told M that she wanted bagpipes to play Amazing Grace, and that she wanted all of her friends there. That the ceremony shouldn't be elaborate -- but she wanted it at the church where she got married and she wanted people who knew her to talk. Afterward, she wanted a simple party. She also said that she wanted to be creamated and that she didn't want to have people looking at her after she was dead.

At the funeral home, we joked that she'd want the most tacky box -- but, M was right in that she'd really want to have the simple pine option that he chose for her.

Also --
Pam was the one who made sure that her husband's mother came with them to the north woods... She seemed to know that he'd need her there. She was right.

Pam --- if you are out there --- I need an answer to one thing... really, I need this answer and you know it has been making me nuts for 5 years.... where are M's car keys?? You had a set on you when you died -- because you drove home from the bar that night -- but they weren't in your pockets or in your purse. They also weren't at Mom's...

so... where did they go?

If you tell me I promise to tell M.