Remembering Pamela

 I’ve chosen to start this blog on this day to honor the memory of my dear friend who passed away four years ago.  She was a creative kindred spirit.  Her friendship and love was a great blessing to me and continues to inspire me to this day. 

This is the tribute I shared at her memorial service:

For Pamela

Honor and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Psalm 96:6

I first met Pamela in the fall of 1984, in Design I, a freshman college art class.  One of the beginning assignments was to have us students draw portraits of each other, so people paired up and sat down to draw.  Pamela and I paired up and drew each other’s portrait in black charcoal on huge news print pads. I still remember what I saw that day. She was a beautiful woman in her thirties with dark hair, cut into a 60s shag hair do, wire rimmed octagon glasses in front of flashing intelligent dark eyes.  She had an intense gaze and an intensity of purpose.   She also had a great sense of humor.  She was something out of the ordinary that day. She was a single mom who had moved to a new state and a new city to make a new life her and her son Ethan, her dearest joy.  She was going back to school to earn a degree to make a better life for both of them which put her in a classroom full of high school graduates who were just starting life, not starting life again. 

The more we got to know each other, the more we found we loved the same things.  We loved art, photography and writing.  We loved purple irises, Van Gogh’s swirly sky, good music, crazy earrings and any clothes made of bright colored batik fabric. I was thrilled to know she had found God and loved Jesus too.  As I think of the college classes I enjoyed the most, she was always there too. We naturally teamed up again and again: getting the assignment done, enjoying each other and inspiring each other.  Because of the differences in our ages she was not only a friend, she was also like a mom or older sister to me; always encouraging, always protecting.  I can remember a professor’s critique of my work that was especially harsh and how she found me afterwards fighting back tears and gave me a pep talk reminding me that was only one person’s opinion.   She was a true friend and that friendship continued.  Through a wedding, many babies and many moves on my part, through sicknesses and many ups and downs on her part, we stayed in touch.  I was so happy we could get together again when my family moved back to NY eight years ago.  It has been also great to see Ethan grow to be a young man who loves God, to see him  take a beautiful bride and, the frosting on the cake, have a baby, sweet little Kayla Marie, the cherished granddaughter.  Hurray for Kayla! Her first birthday was a great celebration.

There are so many things I loved about Pamela it’s hard to sum up. As I sift through the memories of twenty five years of friendship, two things come to the top. I loved her intensity, her zeal for things that really mattered.  I never knew her to do things half way or halfhearted. She could be unflinchingly honest.  She was never lukewarm.  A hug from her was a whole hug. She included body and soul in everything she did. The other thing I loved about her was that she was a full pallet, full spectrum person.  She loved beauty and was beautiful.  She was a work of art who made works of art.  If she loved a thing, she had it in every color:  shoes, polymer clay, hair ties, oil paints, markers, beads, fabric, stamp pads, card stock, floss, jackets, towels and gel pens. 

Here is my happy thought to share.  If she, who suffered so much heartache and sickness and limitations in this life, could still enjoy the good things in this life, try to imagine how much fun she is having in eternal life.  No motorized wheel chair, no walker, no pills, no germs, no soy.  I was talking to another friend  this week about Pamela and I said “I can’t think of any person I know who would enjoy heaven more”.  When I read in Psalm 96:6 “…strength and beauty are in his sanctuary” I think of Pamela.  She was strength and beauty.  Heaven has got to be intense and full spectrum in ways us earthbound people can’t ever understand.  Being with God, perfect joy, perfect peace, perfect health, every color of the rainbow and more, finally a visual of what we, in this life, still have to believe by faith.  Here is our comfort and inspiration.  Pamela is free to enjoy all things.  She has gained what she would want for everyone:  heaven and being with God.  We need to go on and care intensely about things that matter and do things with our whole heart. We need to enjoy the full spectrum of life because there is still much beauty to see and more beautiful things to create.