DEANNE

Today my dear friend PATRICE called with the devastating news that her Sister Deanne, has tragically died.

Although I never met Deanne we spoke on Skype when she visited Patrice and I felt a strong sense of kinship with her - as I do with many people who grew up on cattle ranches in the Mid West States. Patrice and Deanne's Father, raised black Angus in Idaho and taught his girls to ride horses long before they ever went to elementary school. Anyone, anywhere in the world who understand horses and cattle have a unique and indelible fellowship which transcends language, creed or politics. We had hoped, Deanne, Patrice and I, to ride into the backcountry with horses and tents and fishing poles this summer. That's not going to happen now.

To those of you out there who know Patrice please let her know you are thinking of her at this terrible time. It would be of great solace to she, and her family.

Deanne loved her horses; this is from another who understands them too .....

He lay listening to the horse crop the grass at his stakerope and he listened to the wind in the emptiness and watched stars trace the arc of the hemisphere and die in the darkness at the edge of the world as he lay there the agony in his heart was like a stake. He imagined the pain of the world to be like some formless parasitic being seeking out the warmth of human souls wherein to incubate and he thought he knew what made one liable to its visitations. What he had not known was that it was mindless and so had no way to know the limits of those souls and what he feared was that there might be no limits.

Cormac McCarthy 'All the Pretty Horses'

IRIS DEMENT