Lizette Pryor

I don’t have many regular readers of this blog these days.  What began as a blog about running grew into one about traveling and hiking and gardening.  But we have not been traveling much, nor have we felt safe enough to run in a race since March of last year.  Moreover, we thought that Covid was safely receding in the rearview mirror, but now it is spiking again, and as a result we are still reluctant to stand shoulder-to-shoulder at the starting line of another race.

One faithful reader that I knew about was Lizette Pryor, Martha’s aunt who generously invited us to stay at her condo in Atlantic Beach every winter since 2016.  Lizette did not have a computer, so I printed out the blog for her on a regular basis and mailed it to her.  She especially liked hearing about that beautiful beach and the little coastal towns nearby, a place where she had stayed with her husband Leon (who died in 2010) but which she was no longer able to visit. 

Last Tuesday, Lizette died peacefully in her sleep in Raleigh at the age of 92.  I had talked to her on the phone two days earlier – we were in the habit of checking in on her every couple of weeks – and she sounded good, though a little weak and confused.  She was a sweet and generous woman, sister to Martha’s dad Alan, who died in 2016, and she will be greatly missed.  I had the pleasure of knowing that she had received a copy of my book, Bells in the Night, together with one final print-out of my blog, a few days before she died.  “Did you receive my book?” I asked her.  “Many of the poems were written at your beach place.” I told her. 

Do we have a name for
The joy that we feel when the shroud of fog rolls away,
Or when the night heron rises in exultant flight?

Rest in Peace, Lizette.  We will miss you.