(Note: In addition to my husband, I dedicated my book to the memory of a dear friend. This essay about her will be published in The Bradford Era, her hometown newspaper.)
I knew something was wrong at the end of 2015 when I didn’t receive a holiday greeting from the Bradford friend whose Christmas card was always the first to arrive.
So, I googled the name Naomi Carlson and, hesitantly, “obituary.”
That’s how I learned my dear friend ‘Ni’ had died at age at 84 in accord with her motto: “I’d rather wear out than rust out.”
Physically active and mentally alert to the end, Ni was an informal ambassador for her hometown, chatting up visitors, making friends of strangers, and corresponding with them after they returned to their homes.
She demonstrated her devotion to lifelong learning by taking one course at a time over 30 years to earn an associate degree at age 75 from the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.
From the warm tributes that accompanied her obituary, she touched many lives. Readers lauded her as an amazing woman; a generous, giving person, and a wonderful mentor to many girls. “She energized any room when she entered it,” one friend wrote.
Some, like me, knew her as an adult member of Girl Scouts. Ni valued the organization through which she developed independence and an appreciation for the outdoors as a girl. She was also active in her church, a library patron, a proud supporter of her alma mater, and a member of several other community organizations.
Inspired in my retirement by Ni’s words and her example, I wrote a novel, For Love of Billie, and dedicated it to her memory.
Because Ni had a sophisticated worldview, I think she would appreciate the premise of my story—an adolescent smitten by his dad’s young woman co-worker—and the resulting father-son love triangle
The mother in my book tells her son, “You never forget anyone you ever cared about.” That’s exactly how I feel about Naomi “Ni” Carlson.