Dearest Denise

Denise, Kristin and I were a triad, a "lovely clover leaf" as Leni put it, of friends. Of course sometimes only two of us would go out--K & D, K & T, D & T--but the best times were when the three of us could get together. We tried to do that as much as we could, and of course it was never enough. We were buddies in the trenches at NCC, where we all taught. Denise never had the horror stories about students that Kristin and I have, but she was completely sympathetic and willing to listen to us bitch. We cheered on each other's professional endeavors and personal triumphs.

We were Lord of the Rings geeks together. (The three of us took a trip to Boston to see a special LOTR exhibit there. Denise and I stayed with my office-mate Paul Rosa and his family, all of whom--of course--also immediately came to love Denise.)

And we held each other, literally and metaphorically, when times were tough. She was one of those people you would do anything for--except she'd never let you do anything for her. In the seven short years I knew Denise, she became one of my very closest and dearest friends. I love her more than I can say; she may be gone, but that love certainly is not.

I hope others reading this do not find this too corny for words, but I know Denise would not. When she was first diagnosed with cancer, she told me that she kept thinking of a scene in The Return of the King, when Pippin says, "I don't want to be in a battle, but waiting on the edge of one I can't escape is even worse." She wanted to start fighting right away, and once the battle was joined, she fought with valor, and with unyielding grace. And so I want to say to her what Gandalf later says to Pippin: "The journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain curtain of this world rolls back and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it ... white shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise." Denise is in that country now. May the sun never set.

Denise with Viggo Mortensen, in Watertown, New York, September 2006