dona's 365

The Two Pats Originally uploaded by donapatrick . Jeremy’s mother, Pat, was levelheaded, gave sensible advice and shook her head at silliness. I didn’t think I knew her as well as I knew Jack, but after he died, I realized it was she who wrote me the letters. All those years I thought it was Jack writing me.

When I told Marie ’s mom, a Marie herself, about an antipasto dish I loved but couldn’t reproduce, she smiled, nodded her head and told me in her raspy Rhode Island Italian voice how to roast a red pepper, add wine vinegar and slivered garlic to create exactly what I’d described.

Librarian by profession and by nature, Jeremy ’s father, Jack, took me on literary tours of England including the Brontë Parsonage and Watership Down . The best by far was C. S. Lewis country where we stood outside the Kilns then traveled to Holy Trinity Church where Lewis worshiped and is buried .