Tranquilis

Wow. Just... Wow.

Thank you, Eileen. Your words were lovely - we are very grateful for your presence among us. It would not have been right, that the BC community went unrepresented, and you represented with grace and love.

We had the The 'Local' Memorial for Hilary yesterday. Or maybe the 'Remote' one. Depends on your point of view. More family came out of the woodwork than I've seen in decades. Plus people who knew her, or us, or had been somehow impacted - Even people from the internet. One anonymous woman arrived, said beautiful things about Hilary and stained glass windows, and being of the light which illuminates the windows of our lives, then vanished - Each of us thought one of the others of us knew who she was, but none of us recalled her name in our emotional state, so she remains known only to Hilary. Until we learn otherwise, we're calling her Elijah. Scores of Day Lilies came from my father's wife's garden, filling the place with color. Other bouquets arrived from friends who could not be present; we even received a lovely arrangement from the crew who helped clean her house after her passing - signed by the entire crew. All the effort to assemble the Order of Service and plan the readings and hymns went well-repaid, and it was a lovely Service of Memory. Dry eyes were not to be found. We toasted her with tiny little sample cups of Bunnahabhain - AKA "Bunny Brains" - and sampled smoked Alaskan salmon, and looked through her scrap books of photos... And we cried and hugged and told stories of her life and our memories of it. Later, we scattered some of her ashes in the Fellowship's Memorial Grove - She will rise with the turn of the year as lilies and ferns. We are still devastated, and the wound in our collective souls remains vast, but there are places around the edges where we can see new growth, and the healing has begun. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.598025946896452.1073741831.100000671572783&type=3

Aye, that she did. Yours is not an uncommon experience, I've come to learn.

Hilary's ashes were spread on her home lake today. For those as don't know, she lived on a peninsula on a lake. Out one side of her house, she had a view of the Alaska range. Out the other, across the Norton Sound, there was the Chugach range. She loved the sound of loons, and their return to her lake was the turning point in her year.

Public service reminder: Update your wills, folks - and put them where they can easily be found. Even a hand-written will with a signature and a couple witnesses will be better than nothing and can save everyone much trouble.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/adn/obituary.aspx?n=hilary-petit&pid=165037012&fhid=7240#fbLoggedOut

For those in the Wasilla area, Susan Dent is organizing Hilary's memorial for her friends and colleagues. From Susan: As many of you already know our dear friend, Hilary Petit passed away last week. Her family will be having a memorial service for her back East. My daughter Sarah Spike Fisk, is planning a memorial service for her here. It is scheduled for Friday, May 31, 7 pm in the basement of the Wasilla Vet Clinic on the Parks Highway. Her family requests that in lieu of flowers to make donations to www.wildhorsefreedomfederation.org

Thank you, Eileen - You've absolutely nailed her writing style and voice comprehensively with that quote. She was a wordsmith par excellence. A couple times, she complimented my own writing - It was a huge honor, and made me smile down to my toes. Update on causes and cases: This will be a bit blunt, so if you don't want details, stop with this: "She died suddenly and likely without more than momentary pain." Information is filtering out in fragments and rather slowly, but we've learned some new details. It looks like Hilary died *very* suddenly/quickly. She still had her soap and towels in her hands when they found her, which suggests it was pretty much instantaneous. It also means it's less likely to have been respiratory collapse - though her pulmonary system was severely compromised by a very long-term infection. More likely, given this information, that it was a stroke, aneurysm, or massive cardiac event, and while her being sick was probably a factor, it may not have have been the immediate cause. There will not be an autopsy,* so we won't know for sure, but we can be pretty certain it was immediate. This removes several horrifying scenarios from our minds, and is oddly comforting. The woman who found her deserves sainthood. Not knowing how long Hilary had been down, she tried full resuscitation efforts - she did everything right. The State Troopers are impressed, and they don't impress easily. *Clearly natural causes, no suspicion of foul play, no real need to get invasive.

Thank you all. The kind and quality of people who mourn her loss say all that needs to be said about the kind of person she was. Gods - I can't believe I'm talking about her in past tense - That's just not right. But it's reality... One we wish we didn't have to face. My sister had *just* turned 52, and by our family standards, had maybe 40 years left on the clock, if not longer. But she also suffered from a common healer's curse: She gave all to her patients, and saved nothing left for herself. The cruel irony is that just as we became alert to how extreme her danger was, it was already too late. We've lost a spark, and laughter. She was a sizzling bright wit, a keen observer, and a ribald jokester. I cannot count the hours and days we spent setting each other up to be the the straight man to each other's jokes and jests. She raised me more than my mother did, she protected me and taught me. We were mental and emotional cognates - She was the closest of my many close siblings. She was the same to her friends, and they will miss her as deeply as my family and I. Thank you all for your kind words. On practical matters: Hilary will be cremated, and returned to the fold of her family. The final memorial (aside from that which her Alaskan friends undertake) will be in Newark, Delaware - Possibly at the end of June, more likely at the end of July - There are too many things ongoing that she would not want to interrupt, so we won't let her interrupt them - they're as important to her as they are to the rest of us. Donations in lieu of flowers or cards would be appreciated. We don't have an 'official' charity as yet. We may never - Hilary was also a bit of an anarchist. Donate to a reputable dog- or horse-related rescue. Or donate to organizations that support the legal structure to enable and/or enforce laws preventing abuse of animals. Do that, and she will surely give you a wink, click of her tongue, and a thumbs-up from wherever she may be.

Amusing - I think I'm going to start calling my BorderMutt a 'Borderline Collie.' 'Cause damn if that ain't the most perfect description of her!

Yup. As I understand, the clipped portions were to free portions of the body for running through close undergrowth, and the unclipped portions were to protect the body against excessive heat loss. The clipped portions of the body would shed icy water very quickly - If the dog is running though shallow, chilly water, the chest, head, and torso would stay somewhat more dry and protected from the cold, and the wet clipped legs would dry quickly.