Patricia, Jan 23, 1954 - June 28, 2014

Patricia and Marty during their time in Costa Rica

This is the final entry in Word in the Woods. But that doesn't mean it's the last word. Patricia Jempty, the author who always signed her posts PJ, passed away -- peacefully, in her sleep, in hospice -- in the early hours of June 28 in Brooklyn. In the days before, she had been embraced by her friends and her family -- her husband Marty; her children Mariel, Mark and Harry.

As a reader of Word in the Woods, you know them, and how much she loved them. (And she could kid because she loved; as she once wrote on this blog, "My son Harry went to Bonnaroo, a music festival in Tennessee, and hasn't been heard from in more than a week. I'm sure his phone is dead. Should I assume he'll be home for dinner tonight?")

Her friend Ronni Gordon wrote a lovely tribute to Patricia on her own blog: "She was feisty, funny, smart and compassionate." (You can read it in its entirety here: http://runnerwrites.blogspot.com/2014/06/on-losing-friend-to-leukemia.html.)

Patricia had a thing for the color orange long before Netflix decreed it cool; she also liked shoes, earrings that matched her clothes and a good cocktail. But it is her love for Marty, Mariel, Mark and Harry that runs through every post on this blog.

That love lives on, through her family and her many friends, and through her writing; and because of it, so does she.