A Final Farewell As 2013 Comes To An End

Three of my good friends lost battles to cancer in 2013.

Pam Meehan, 64, on February 13, 2013.  Pam and I became friends when she hired on as the receptionist at Brompton Productions, Lord Tim Hudson's rock'n roll management firm.  Remember, this was in the heat of rock'n roll and our "visitors" were about as bizarre as they came without actually being confined to, uh, "secure quarters" (read:  Camarillo State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.)  Enter Pam of the big doe eyes and soft voice.  She had a rocky go of it until she learned to assert herself and then it was Katy bar the door!  She left an ex-husband with whom she was best friends, three daughters and a grandson when she died after a four year battle with breast cancer.

Sue Braden-Thorssen, 72,  on April 9, 2013.  We had known each other since kindergarten.  Despite being separated by half of the country, marriages, child raising and life itself, we stayed friends for more than 68 years.  She and her second husband Sig loved to travel and often took driving vacations "on the blue line roads" rather than freeways.  They were here and we had a memorable lunch at Ports O Call.  When Sig died, Sue sent me a Tupperware bowl  of his ashes and directed  that they be portioned out between the rose garden, Santa Monica; the deck of the Queen Mary (we settled for a curbside bed of flowers) and launched from the patio at Ports.  We never go there without stepping up to the railing and paying our respects.  She fought lung cancer for nearly 10 yeas, having beaten breast cancer nine years earlier.

Dale Cox, Jr. died June 25, 2013 of multiple myeloma a very short time after having been disguised with it.  Dale was a longtime member of the South Bay Writers Workshop and had recently published two books "Tango Trajectory" about a female test pilot and "Top Secret Flight" about a photo recon job over Japan during WW2.  Dale was 92 and left his wife Patricia after a 67 year marriage.