NANCY
When our country school closed, we were shipped off to the big city, a nearby town of 3000. The townies in 6th grade had been together since kindergarten, and they looked suspiciously at the three of us country bumpkins. There was one exception. A girl with long hair so black it was nearly blue. She sat quietly in the back corner. She had just moved to the area and looked as lost as we did. I later learned she lived on the opposite side of town on a huge hog farm. We two misfits were soon drawn together. Turns out we both loved being in the country, words and writing, and school. That September day in 1957 was the first day of our fifty-year friendship.
Nancy and I went through school together and were roommates at the University of Michigan. While we both still lived in Ann Arbor, we traded off watching our combined 4 children under 4. Then I moved, and she moved. Over the years, we’d lose touch, then regain it, but we always wrote long letters. Mine were plain and factual, Nancy’s were flowery, poetic, and exploding with her current loves. Folded inside were pressed flowers or scribbled poems. She shared her joy at living in France, writing poetry, hiking and always, always her children. There were a few rare visits along the way.
Nancy and I had two special bonds: nature and our cameras. We shared snapshots and later electronic photos of our individual adventures with trees, bugs, birds, and most especially, turtles. Nancy loved turtles so inordinately that she finally had to call a moratorium on people sending her turtles in every form. I knew my own obsession with turtles was understood by someone, even if she was hundreds of miles away. Like grandmothers pulling out a stack of photos of their grandchildren, we tolerated each other’s turtle tales.
It is rare to find someone who just needs a word or glimpse of your life to understand and be right there with you, no matter how far away. I sent her green heron pictures. I inundated her with green heron pictures. I knew that she understood what it was like to be with them. She sent me pictures of her hike on the Appalachian Trail. I could picture her sitting on a rock in the mountains, taking out her journal full of dramatic, Baroque handwriting.
Sometimes I would sit on my antique wooden chair sunk in the mud up to its rungs and call her to describe the warblers I was looking at in the marsh, and she would be right there with me. She always knew something special about each bird or beast I was fixating on at the moment. "If it has that tail stripe, it's a king bird. You can count on it." And I do.
Sometimes I would sit on my antique wooden chair sunk in the mud up to its rungs and call her to describe the warblers I was looking at in the marsh, and she would be right there with me. She always knew something special about each bird or beast I was fixating on at the moment. "If it has that tail stripe, it's a king bird. You can count on it." And I do.
Nancy filled a room with laughter. Her laugh started deep in her gut and traveled up the scale. Life in general delighted her. She was unfettered by convention, and had a light around her that drew people to her.
When nature turned on Nancy, she lost her battle with cancer, but she kept her spirit intact. When I see a king bird, which she loved, I instinctively think, “I need to call Nan and tell her about this.” Then I remember. Sometimes I just tell her about it anyway because if anyone can persist in this universe it is Nancy Ann Huelsberg from Chelsea, Michigan. And Vermont. And Massachusetts. And France. And anywhere there are streams, ponds, and trails to hike.
