Heidi

A tribute offered in the name of Heidi's Tuesday evening family -- Brigitte Hanson, Victoria Josslin, the author and others.

Life moves in a stream of events, both serendipitous and disappointing. We occasionally know triumph, sometimes defeat.  My friend Heidi Wells passed away on the evening of Friday, July 4, Independence Day.  For Heidi’s family and friends I’m sure there’s more defeat than triumph in their hearts just days after she slipped away following a rapid, renewed assault by the cancer that wreaked havoc in her life in the recent past.  Perhaps in time they and we will find peace in the fact that Heidi finally found freedom -- freedom from the pain, fear and uncertainty that accompany cancer, freedom from worry for those that would be left behind, should it ultimately take her from us much too soon. 

Those of us whose great privilege it was to know Heidi will miss her sorely.  She was a relatively private person whom I knew after these many years only insufficiently.  I knew her to be protective of the treasure that is her family.  Her love of Wes and her deep love and humble pride in her children and grandchildren were evident each time the conversation turned to so much as a glance in that direction.

For most of the past twenty years or so, I enjoyed the calm, easygoing warmth Heidi brought to the table around which we sat one evening each week for conversation, reading and instruction in the language of her homeland.  Heidi was one who brought to us a unique view of the fatherland and of her Muttersprache as she shared stories of her mother and her early years in Pforzheim at the edge of the Black Forest, stories of colorful celebration, of distinctive German cuisine, of traditions foreign to those of us whose own traditions sometimes seemed pallid by comparison.

I’m happy and grateful to have known Heidi and to have shared a small bit of her life.  I wish her family and all of us peace in the midst of loss.