A dear family friend, Pamela Collins, has lost a struggle against diabetes. We had hope after she finally found a kidney donor that her quality of life would improve and she would flourish again. Unfortunately not all gifts are what they seem.
Pamela was an amazing artist. She captured Winter Harbor, it's simplicity of life and complexity of nature, perfectly. It always made me feel quite important to hang one of her paintings on my wall.
I saw her just before I left. She was in pain, swollen and tired. But she had an accepting, positive spirit even though she was less than well. Her smiles only occasionally would break with a sigh, a kind of surrender to the unavoidable. She brought humor to every situation, as much for her sanity as the company's comfort.
Today I sit in Cathedral Square in Christchurch. Angels and saints before me. While family and friends gather across the globe for her wake, I remember her here in what seems the London of the South Pacific. A city she would have loved to paint. She walked around with me all day, told me where to look and how to go.
When I talked to mum she told me about a day, decades ago, when little me did a jig and demanded of Pamela "You dance". I am lucky to have known her all my life. She was an engima to me. Someone who was able to live in their art, to really see the beauty behind the mundane. She lived in a magical little house, more like an English cottage, surrounded by flowers and cats and delicate treasures. I always aspired to live the way she did. She was sarcastic at times, had a wonderful British humor. She was beautiful and graceful. She was peaceful. Truly a soul that had been here before and was improving with each visit. She was a part of my family and I loved her.
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