Pam

Posted by Joan Haberman in HandPrints Stories & Videos | 2 comments

I watched as she threw her head back so that it hung over the edge of the bed, hair dangling to the floor; long, thick and silky hair; not like mine – frizzy, wild and hard to manage. That summer night in 1957, Pam showed me how to brush my hair. She held the brush deliberately, pulling it through her hair. Over and over she brushed, as I sat on the floor, an 11 year old girl mesmerized with awe and admiration. That hair might have been her trademark, if not for her huge green eyes that took you by surprise.

The following summer, I confided to her that I wanted to shave my legs but my mother wouldn’t allow it. “What can she do, once it’s done?” Pam asked rhetorically, with that serious, woman-of-the-world tone in her voice.

So, we got out a big towel and a glass of water and sat on the linoleum kitchen floor. I don’t recall where we got the razor; maybe it was my dad’s, maybe it was Pam’s, but she carefully instructed me in its use. Meticulously drawing the silver safety razor up and down my legs, I made clean lines through the foam until they were silky smooth. We knew this was serious business, but we laughed devilishly, lest we be caught in the act.

Though she was my sister’s friend, and three years older than I, Pam treated me as her equal; I sensed that I was important to her. Long before I learned the devastation of betrayal, I instinctively knew that I could trust Pam, and loved her for that. I felt that bond for the rest of her life.

We changed, as did the world, and we did it together. The teenage years; the young married years; the buying-houses-and-having-children years. From mah jongg games to women’s consciousness-raising groups. From raising kids to going back for college degrees; from cooking and car pooling, to working and earning our own money. The successes and growing dissatisfactions; the depressions and joys. We shared them, and we talked and talked and talked.

She always had a smile for me.

Hours became days, months and years, mostly in Pam’s kitchen. At seventeen, she shared her grief and bewilderment over the death of her mother. I later expressed my guilt and gratitude about the near-drowning of my two-year-old daughter. We passionately loved Robert Redford in “The Way We Were,” and thought Chevy Chase was adorable on Saturday nights. What would we do if faced with “Sophie’s Choice?” Or, what time should we meet to be first in line for the new Woody Allen movie? And, we contemplated being loved like Billy Joel’s, Just the Way You Are.

Year after year we spent cozy hours sequestered in Pam’s bedroom, getting away from the kids for just the minute that turned into hours. How many laughs? How many tears? Never one fight; just an open door, a welcome smile; and those eyes!

I needn’t talk of her death. It was five years in the coming, and Pam was angry. Brave, yes, but guilty and angry. Yet she was always Pam with me. Nearing the end, she stopped seeing most of her friends, but I was grateful to be at her side. It was hard work trying to guess what she needed, because she didn’t want… she didn’t ask. I did my best though, and she knew I loved her. In the end, she slipped away, leaving a world of people who were lucky to have had her in their lives.

I wept, but those words resonated through me; I knew I had received a gift. “Love your family, and love yourself.” How did she know?

One year later, having lost myself and all that I had envisioned as my future, I went to Pam’s grave. Sitting on the ground with a huge umbrella shielding me from the rain, I spoke aloud, asking if she believed what had happened to me. Had she thought that Steve would ever leave me and our life together? I cried, and asked for some sign of reassurance that I could survive. I visualized sitting in her kitchen – her haven. And she spoke to me.

I heard her. I know I did. It was a soft sound that swept over me. She said, “Love your family, and love yourself”.

It gets harder to calculate the years since she’s gone, but Pam is as present with me today as she ever was. I still laugh aloud and speak her name when I see an old movie that we loved. I ask her the titles of, or words to songs I’ve forgotten, or I’ll spontaneously say, “Pam, listen to this,” or “Do you believe that? “

Time passes, but the light of Pam’s memory does not diminish. Our loving connection continues, deep and strong.

Photo Shaving Cream by williac
Photo Umbrella by Citlalli EB