I will forever be grateful to my freshman English teacher and Jean's grandmother. Both of them urged Jean and me to find a pen pal. And so we did...Jean and I began our correspondence when we were 14 years old. Through the years we shared the news on our lives, our loves, our marriage, our pregnancies, our families. We never met in person until about 20 years ago. There was never a minute of awkwardness. We sat in the garden and filled one another in on the stories too long for letters. In the years that followed we saw one another with some frequency through trips to London, Florida, Chicago and our grand adventure out to the American West. I love her as you only can a friend of nearly 60 years and I will miss her dearly in the days ahead.