This morning, I received an email from Otto, who I had sometimes met when he was walking or biking with Patty Stoll and I was out doing the same.
"Patty has lost her battle with cancer," he informed me. "...I know you will miss her dearly, as I do, she was such a positive in my life and I don't think anyone will be able to fill the void."
Despite the cancer that nearly a year-and-half ago her doctor had told her would kill her within two or three months, that there was no point treating it for it was hopeless and that she best prepare to die, the news came as a shock.
Patty did not heed that doctor, but fought, and gained much more life - high quality life - than he was willing to believe she could. "It just wouldn't be right," she explained me. "If I could not be here to enjoy this beautiful place."
When last I saw her, at the corner of Seldon and Wards, during one of my brief periods at home early in the summer, she looked good. She felt good and was looking forward to future years. I did not take a picture that visit or mention it in my blog.
It felt to me like one of those occasions when it was best to just visit and talk and not worry about documenting every thing and to not even bother with the subject of cancer.
I can't remember precisely when I first met Patty, but it was not long after we first moved to Wasilla some 28 years ago. I was out walking in the woods behind our house when she came walking in the opposite direction - young, blond, fit, energetic and friendly. We stopped and visited.
And so it was from then on - I would frequently meet Patty coming in the opposite direction as we walked, mountain biked and cross country skied. "We've got to stop meeting like this," she would say. Most often, we would stop and chat - although sometimes her bike was moving fast and mine was too and we would just shout, "hey...!"
That was really the only way I knew her. We did not get together at each other's homes, hang out, go to dinner - we just met, out on the trail. Yet that was enough to recognize and respect each other as friends, to see that we were people with many common interests.
And when they built the Serendipity subdivision and robbed us of the woods that we had so freely walked, skied and mountain biked through, we both mourned the loss of something so wonderful, just outside our doors.
We kept walking and biking, though, and kept meeting like this.
Once, she left for a summer to sail a boat up the east coast from the Caribbean to Canada.
I will keep walking and biking through this neighborhood. I will continue to enjoy it. But, just as I have felt the ache of loss of the woods to Serendipity each time that I have set out on a walk or bike ride in the past half-dozen years or so, I will now walk with a new ache, knowing that I will never again encounter the smiling and energetic face of Patty Stoll, the woman who I affectionately and admiringly called, The Fit Lady. She kept such good care of herself. Always ate right - got plenty of good exercise.
It was - 24 degrees (-31 c) when I took this picture in late December, 2008, but Patty didn't object. She loved it, she thrived in it.
Otto tells me her ashes will be scattered at Gold Chord Basin in Hatcher Pass.
After I learned the news, took a walk. I planned to take a photo of Patty's empty house, but when I reached it, people - family members - children and siblings - had just come out the door and were climbing into their cars.
I had never met any of them before. At left is her son, Willie, who she once so proudly told me was running in the New York Marathon even as we were talking, her daughter, Erin, the artsy one - the graphic designer and her son Erick, who describes himself as "the motor head" of the family. He loves to work with any kind of moving machine, be it a car, snowmachine, fourwheeler, boat motor...
From them, I learned that Patty had done well all summer, that her death Tuesday took everybody by surprise, for she had appeared fit and healthy just one week before.
"Cancer does not play fair," a sister said.
I then continued on my walk. Tequilla, the sweetheart dog who always feels that she must act tough, barked at me.
I saw a grader coming down Tamar. It is October 1 - see how the leaves here are mostly gone now? It was that big wind that was blowing when I left for Barrow one week ago that took them.
This is Bill, the driver of the grader. Hired through contract by the Borough, Bill was working to fix up the road and to prepare it for freeze-up, which should come soon. On clear days, the morning frost has been heavy for some time now.