Laura Klee
Barbara and I met in freshman year of high school at St Mary’s in Manhasset NY…. She was one of my best friends there for 4 years, and then we both started at LeMoyne College in Syracuse. She left the school after a while…. And my parents moved across the country and insisted I transfer to a California scoop, so after two years, I too left Le Moyne in 1970. Now this was before the Internet, e mail, cell phones, etc. But Barbara and I maintained a close connection as penpals sending letters back and forth for decades. We followed each other through degrees, moves, jobs, etc. we only managed a few in person visits… me to Cayman and Florida….she a quick stop on her way from Australia back home. she had a long layover and I took a sick day to spend it with her in LA. eventually snail mail have way to the immediacy of e mail…and that made it even easier to stay in touch.
It has been a sad few years as she fought her cancer… as it became harder to fight, and as ultimately she chose to move to hospice care. My one wish (and I know that of our other BFF from St Mary’s, Elaine Donoghue) was that I had lived closer and would have been able to be there physically present to help her. But logistics and distance didn’t allow that. I hope she knew what her friendship of 60 years meant to me… that I was really wishing there was more than I could do, but ‘listen’ to her e mails… support her decisions… and now, wish her peace and freedom from pain and suffering….and send my deepest condolences to her family and friends. I just learned of her death today, so this is coming almost a month late. Be at peace, Barbara…I will miss you….
PS I posted a few pictures….one of Barbara’s extra formal graduation portraits I kept. The yearbook pics had a white shawl…This was a black shawl…And a few of Barb in her Pirates’ Week Costume, during my Pirates’ week visit to Cayman.
