In March 1993, I was most of the way through my private pilot training. I was acing the whole program, flying a bunch, and felt I was ready for my check ride any day. I had just been named Oklahoma Press Association’s Photographer of the Year for the second time. It was a very upbeat time for me.

The previous October, in the middle of a cold, sunny New Mexico morning, Pam and I broke up. You can read more about that day here (link.) Despite the sting of that event, I felt I had turned a very important emotional corner, and though my journal is full of ponderances about Pam, I was also looking with eager anticipation at my very bright future.

My friends Brenda and Margaret had noted how well I handled letting go of Pam. Margaret even said she was proud of me. My friend Thea told me, “Richard, we like the new you.”

There were always reminders and subtle setbacks. When I got back from the breakup trip, a mutual friend of mine and Pam’s, “Maris”, who I visited frequently when Pam was in treatment in New Mexico, refused to talk to me, saying it would be “inappropriate.” A few days later she accused Pam of sleeping with her husband, so I guess “Maris” had a few issues.

Another coworker of mine, “CJ,” looked, acted, and even smelled a lot like Pam, right down to her brand of cigarettes, her overuse of perfume to cover the smell, her waifishness, a son the same age from a previous marriage, and an ex husband also named Chris.

“CJ” felt a little defensive about me, and told me, “Why don’t you just ignore Pam and maybe she’ll crawl back into the hole she came from.”

It was around this time that I started half-dating Kathy, a story that ended in tragedy, which you can read here (link.)

Journal, March 16, 1993 (rewritten for better clarity and continuity):

After a photo assignment, I dropped by Melissa’s, hopped out of the car and took about five steps. I looked to the left and saw Pam’s car. I turned around without hesitation and drove away.

I went to the airport, where I found Phil teaching his next ground school, so I sat in on it for a bit.

I drove home, and not 10 minutes later, there was a knock on the door, and I knew it was Pam. I invited her in. She looked beautiful in a long black wool coat. She had on new suede shoes.

“I’m making contact,” she said, half-sitting on the arm of my couch.

“I knew you were in town,” I told her.

She said she asked Melissa about me every week, and I told her I didn’t ask about her because I didn’t want to know.

“My life has gone to hell in a handbasket,” she explained, though she tended to duck in and out of obscuration when it came to the details. I told her things were great with me, and that I wasn’t interested in making her problems my concern.

At some point, she told me I was “an amazing man,” and that I was “a very sensitive man.”

Despite her looking great and being right there, we were both very closed.

Pam died in November 2023. She was 58.