Pascale is the kind of person who would fix anything you need. She was literally a "fixer" or maybe a "finder" if you want to be clear. Her job was to help ex-pats to find the best possible home for their relocation - short or long-term. But she knew every piece of property on the east of Paris to Fontainebleu. She also knew the schools, the groceries, the phone companies, the banks, and the cable companies. Did I mention she could get through the red tape amazingly quickly. And all with a politesse that would dazzle even the most surly.
Our first meeting was when Pat and I went to Paris on our house-hunting trip. She knew her stuff, and had about 10 locations for us to see. The first was really going to need a lot of work, and while I was trying to figure all that out, she was telling me not to decide until I had seen everything she had to show me. She was really concerned about me being close to what I needed, and not so much what Pat wanted - but she knew he needed to be sold on it too. She showed us our future house and started out saying - this would be perfect for both of you, so keep an open mind. I think she was sensitive to Pat's wish that the house need no work at all. This house needed at least a really good cleaning and a lot of work in the upstairs bathroom. Pascale told Pat she could take care of all that, and she did. It was the perfect house, and she knew it.
Pascale was as phenomenally anxious about her world as she was everyone else's. She was so afraid that her husband was working too much, her oldest son was not working enough, and her youngest son was not living enough outside his books. She spent a lot of energy on worrying, but she could be really fun too, and that is what I remember the most. Her love of her house and garden in Bourbon, brought her a lot of joy, and I saw her relax very much once she was able to buy her home, and get it nearly finished, before she was struck with cancer.
The best story of Pascale for me was our day in Monmartre - searching for fabrics for her window treatments in the new house in Bourbon L'Archamboult. We spent a great day learning about each other's passions. Those passions were fabrics, colors, design, photography, family, and relationships. We had a lot in common. We spoke of and to our partners, and about our families, our futures and our pasts. We had lunch, walked up and down the hills of the fabric district, and rode the metro in many directions. I was delighted to show Pascale, a Parisian, my secret fabric spots in Paris. We shared the excitement of finding "jewelry" for the window treatments she was making for the Bourbon house, and she was delighted to enjoy the day with someone who could reflect that joy right back to her.
We dreamt of traveling together, and planned to go to London sometime, and of traveling the US with our families. We shared our vacation photos together, exchanged recipes, and she was very sweet to me when Chili died. Our weekends together in Bourbon were so much fun, and we didn't know then that we were counting down the days of her life, but we knew we were fortunate to have found each other. As I was fortunate to get to see Pascale in the last month of her life, we didn't say a lot, but said it all. We cried, we promised, and we just knew that we would be together again. The planets had collided to get us together in the first place, and I know, given how hard Pascale fights, and how clever she can be to solve a problem, I have no doubt we will be together again someday.
