I immediately knew when I saw that Denise, my next-door neighbor, had the very same fabric on her den furniture that I had on mine, that she was a kindred spirit. And so she proved to be. Over more than a decade when we walked together each week to and from our Spanish class, we spent time sharing intimate thoughts and stories about our parents, children, families, politics, life. She had the rare quality of being both a cheerful optimist and a down-to-earth pragmatist, always with a strong dose of good humor and simple decency. After she moved back to England, we were not the most regular correspondents, yet whenever we were together on her bi-yearly visits, we easily picked up right where we last left off, withought a hitch. I valued her friendship and will always treasure the time we shared.