Joyce

Death has reared it's ugly head in our neighborhood, at a house within sight of me. Last Friday Joyce, the sunshine neighbor of Apache Lane, suffered a stroke & Sunday she died.
Little did I know.
Then last evening I received an email from a good friend who reads the News & Observer obits, asking if I knew Joyce, who worked at the library.
I was stunned.
I was stricken with grief.

Joyce & her dear friend (a fellow neighbor) walked early in the mornings at the same time I walked Wyatt, so we ran into them 2 or 3 times a week. They loved to pet Wyatt:) And Wyatt would gallop to greet them, only to get close & act timid to have them pet him...a mystery? Then I finally figured out it must be that they both had a cat, & he could smell the cats as he got near them (cats are a scary thing to Wyatt). Joyce & her friend were such good sports though & every morning would be tickled to see him, & we always enjoyed a quick chat:)

Joyce & her husband Brien offered Cameron his first job. Joyce called Cameron to ask if he wanted to work for them at The Postal Center--and he loved that job:) Even Seth worked there later for a time:)

Joyce worked at the library right up the street for years, so everybody knew her. She was truly a delightful person, one of the most positive people you could ever meet! She always asked about you & the focus was on you, never her.
And her smile lit up a room, or a library, or a green way:)
And what a sense of humor! Any time you were with her you laughed.
She never failed to make you feel better, a rare gift:)

I will miss her, our neighborhood will miss her, her best friends will miss her, her co-workers will miss her, & her family will never be the same.

A woman of great light & joy has left us.