Please remember when you read this that P.D. was working on regaining her language skills through writing email, and she used the simplest spelling for words .

P.D., you gave me so much. I'm already starting to tear up. She's passed on now. She closed her eyes, relaxed and let go. God took her. I felt her hand on my heart the day I learned she had passed. I cried for a while, but then I felt the joy she knew. I looked at the budding trees, the grass-nibbling bunnies, the cycle of life, and I was happy to have known her. She made it clear her wish was for us to reach out to others to do a good turn, not to necessarily give money to a foundation, though that helps. Her vision of god was more immediate, though. She touched our souls, she was in touch with her own. Knowing her feels like I've taken a pure shot of what's important. I miss our exchanges. In her last email to me, she said she missed writing and talking to me. That felt good, because it gave me a sense that she was benefiting from interacting with me, though I was clearly benefiting with every letter we exchanged.

One highlight of my experience with writing her was that I told her about the Westminster Kennel Dog Show after I learned that she had a Min Pin, Squirt. I knew then that she liked dogs. She watched the show and got to experience the winning pup's joy like I did. That pup truly looked thrilled to have won Westminster, and P.D. and I talked about how cute he was, pumping his paws, smiling hugely. We shared that experience and I'm smiling now to write about it.

I got to know P.D. virtually, after a simple notice appeared on MaryD’s ausxip site. For us emailers there were no tubes, no incisions, no catheters, walkers, nurses, machines, beds, or other awkward devices. Just communication. Bless the power of email, for it gave us a chance to communicate directly, unhindered by the visual clues that tend to shape our judgments about each other. I learned who she was inside. My mind formed opinions about her free from the prejudice of my eyes. Our resulting relationship felt purer and more powerful than most in my life.

She refused to adopt the values I shared about success and promotion. I was just turning the corner on my MBA program, starting to think about what having an MBA means and how to leverage the degree for a higher, more lucrative position.

I shared these questions with her, asking how she saw success in her life. She replied: “Me suces men lik see fac miror. Fel good side heart a head. Do bes do lik go do work o skul o roler skat. Think I suces cause I tru me and think o act me and walk a talk. I no hapy less shar rel me and be me and shar side me cause got be bes me o no hapy and go motons sted gro.”

It seems simple and obvious to me now, but it was a shock after so much immersion in "title and salary" as a way to measure success. She told me her definition of success over and over, each time I asked her, me trying to put it different ways so that I could get around to my own understanding. But P.D. would not budge. She knew who and what she was, whom she loved, what she valued.

Soon, maybe it took several weeks, I began to loosen my grip on my own definitions. She told me a story of how her dad and uncle sought job security, title, salary and power his whole life. "Think sad thing me remember Dad and unkl. Dad work all lif job hate cause good mony and prestig and fod. Unkl make lots mony lik 7 figer and lose job CEO compny and wandr round las few yers figer do. He sa job stop fun yers go. I sa how job fun you and he sa desin plans and stop fun star go up lader. He spen lots time and make lots mony and hate go work."

I think it was her comment that he stopped having fun once he started to go up the ladder that really got my attention. I was positioning myself to launch my career up a steep corporate slope, stakes high (my way of life, my integrity, my comfort with myself). What was that pursuit about? It was an image I thought I needed to have. The prestige was about appearances. P.D. helped me work out that I was after an elusive, false bliss.

I will benefit from that awareness the whole rest of my life. I just sigh with gratitude that she helped me avoid so much pain and destruction in my own life by following an apparition, something outside, not real, and out of touch with me. P.D. told me some of her own story: "Whil go I consul EDS and Intel. EDS lots suts and specil wa lok and act and proses. Intel casal cloths and grup work with pi sky cause devlpers. Lots difrent atude and atmosfer and fel lots fols pa atentin dres o talk o be have cause spec you be certan wa. I get job consul cause wa think and proses ides side head and wa help cusmer gro busenes. Suts o jens no chang think me o act me o sid me."

She got the job for the way she thinks. I latched on to that too. And I came to a place where I began to let the external trappings sit in the background and put my own skills in business in the foreground. Would I want to work for a company that looks at me and judges whether I'd fit in there by my appearance alone? Certainly not--but the culture encourages it. I encourage it in myself.

P.D. helped me put my appearance in the proper perspective. What's under there? Who's under there? She's the one we're interested in, not the one you carefully present and promote. And so that has lead to more journaling to help me get in touch with my own personality, voice, self, and skills, to have confidence to develop those skills and my own passions. P.D. told the truth, her truth, and I listened.

This simple interaction is magical, and it happened because of P.D. herself, the Xenaverse, it happened because someone sent a message to MaryD's site, because MaryD's site was there, because Dem kept faithfully communicating to us, as did Priscilla, and we all stayed connected through cable and electricity. Having said all of this, I am grateful for the pleasure of P.D.'s presence in my world. She changed it. She's taught me to value myself more highly.

What a gift.

To return to P.D.'s tribute page
to continue reading please
use your "Back" button
or click here