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Thinking of Alyce It's taken me a few days to finally decide to send this post. Like many of you, I have been thinking of Alyce and catching myself getting ready to send an email or give a phone call. My first meeting in the flesh occurred several years back when she and I were volunteering toward getting the "first printing" of Tomfolio tee shirts distributed. As David, I, too, met a tall thin woman in coveralls, with a long braid. She was already tethered to supplementary oxygen at the time. I met her Dalmatians and was given their approval. Over ensuing years, we discovered mutual interests in chocolate and cheese, in gardening (she was a master gardener) and in sharing observations of the antics of our indoor and outdoor animal friends. I did not realize, until recent weeks, how much I had grown to look forward to her emails and rely on her ever-presence. As I live about 1.5 hours to the southeast of Germantown, I was lucky to be able to visit Alyce several times in the past few months. Although she was getting very weak, and growing frustrated with the increasing limitations of her body, she was taking it in stride, still retaining her "Alyce-ness". I admired her strength and bravery. On one visit, she brought me to her kitchen door to look out over her garden and watch the newcomers at the bird feeder. She grumbled about not being able to reach something in the kitchen any more. "I'm short now." Looking up at her (I am 5'1"), I said "If you are short, than what am I?" She snorted. A few days before her 70th birthday, at the end of April, we had a nice long telephone chat. At this point, sitting at the computer was too difficult for her. She gave me some input on a beaded lampshade I was completing. We discussed her sons and she reminisced about their birth (they were surprise twins). I updated her on the progress of my tomato seedlings. It was the last real conversation we were to have, and I think we both sensed it. I saw her again briefly a few days before she died. "I'm dying," she said. "I know," I said, as I rubbed her arms a little. She still had that darn twinkle in her eyes. And her long braid. I like to think that she is still keeping an eye on my garden. Susan Pav
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