For Judy

I remember more than twenty years ago when I lived in Boston and the phone rang. It was a woman, a girl really, who was in a Master's program in Health Policy at Harvard. She was a pharmacist and had heard of me, also a pharmacist in graduate school, through a mutual friend.

We had talked a few weeks ago about collaborating on a grant proposal. We emailed about having drinks next month at one of our professional meetings, as we do most years. We would meet for an hour to share gossip, to commiserate over the travails of the Ivory Tower, to talk about our 'kids'--my son and daughter, and her two show dogs.

Judy died yesterday in a head-on collision when another car crossed the median. I will miss her sincere laugh, her kindness, her passion for research and scholarship, her red hair noticeable in a crowd. Peace...