Remembering Plaw?? How do you possibly memorialize someone you only met face-to-face a handful of times, yet who means so very, very much to you.
First off, BDD, Thank you for your last post. Plaw would've LOVED it. Flopsy and Mopsy were his favorites. And who could forget his encounter with Frank Vincent?? He's lucky the man didn't take out a restraining order.
Second, I want to thank Geoff for providing us this website. Through this wonderful place, I got to meet my prince, my Paulie. We got to talk about books, about movies, he used to listen to me rant about my mother-in-law, about the kids, and we talked about how he wanted to go to Italy one day. Every day at 4:00, I would sit down at the kitchen table to do homework with the kids. I would sign onto Yahoo, and chat with Paul. He always wanted to know what the math homework was for the night, and would solve algebra problems with us. He especially loved the "stupid" assignments, like "Name five countries that start with the letter Z". He would always come up with the answers, too. It was heartbreaking this September, when 4:00 came around, and there was no Paul online.
Happy memories? Well, there was the Saturday last year when Mr. Babe and I were meeting the gang at the Doubletree. Paul was supposed to meet me and my husband at the bar at 4:00. 4, 4:15, no Paul. I was beginning to get a little paranoid when Geoff walked in and told me that Paul called him to say that he went to the wrong hotel. That was SO Plaw, the most intelligent, yet forgetful man I ever knew!
When I went to visit him in the hospital two weeks ago, he was so very thin and weak. He was barely able to speak, but I held his hand and told him how glad I was to be with him. His elderly aunt was visiting him and she asked me how I knew Paul. I told her that we had met on the internet. From her reaction, I thought the woman was going to end up in the bed next to him. Paul whispered, "Godfather," and I explained to her how we all found this site, and then a few of us who lived reasonably close to one another would get together for dinner now and then. She seemed vastly relieved and confided that this was the first internet meeting she had ever heard of that didn't involve a sexual predator! When Paul had regained a bit of strength and we were talking on the phone last week, I told him that I believe his aunt considered me his Internet Ho!! He got a huge kick out of that!
Plaw, my sweet and dear prince of a friend, I will miss you more than words can say. I am so glad to have had the privilege and honor of being your friend. My life is so very much richer for having known you. As I told you that day, I will always find you.
