While Juliet didn't leave behind nearly as much of herself in writing as one might hope, there are enough pieces to make fun and interesting reading!

This photo was taken in 1974 at a summer camp. A young lad named Timmy has been cropped out. You've seen 12-year old boys. It's no real loss.

For instance, here's an opportunity to read two different autobiographies she wrote— one written when she was a senior in high school:

Autobiography, age 16
And then a second autobiography written as an adult.  Back in the summer of 1993, Juliet and I were applying to an agency to adopt a baby. As part of the application process, we had to submit written autobiographies of ourselves as individuals and as a couple. Bear in mind that the agency was our audience as you read the following:
Autobiography, age 31


Now let's go backwards again in time and hear from Juliet what it was like to be almost 13 years old and away at summer camp.  The time is the summer of 1975.  The place is Camp Kinderland. And here are selections from Juliet's letters home to her family:
Letters from camp


As you could read in the autobiographies, Juliet loved sports.  She used baseball cards—the one above, for instance— as bookmarks.  She loved the Mets.  She loved the Islanders and would go on and on about this championship or that, about some hockey player who refused to wear a helmet, about Brian Trottier and Gretzky and Lemieux, and so on.  She loved it so much that it even made its way into her short stories. Here is a story she wrote about a Montreal Canadiens team that never existed except in Juliet's head. (The story only features a few players, but she created an entire imaginary team, complete with stats, nicknames, home towns, families...)
The hockey story



Graduation photo, Barnard College, 1983.

Juliet was a real person with real problems even before the cancer. Having died and having people love and miss her doesn't mean that she wasn't once a teenager with acne or a college student with an abusive boyfriend. The following is a letter Juliet wrote to herself just after graduating college.  It's painful to read... except that we've all been there, too.  Juliet survived feeling like this.  It wasn't so bad that it couldn't change.

Failure letter



In the second autobiography above, Juliet described how she and I went from blind date and correspondence to an actual relationship: "At the end of February, I went to visit my grandmother in Florida and I wrote to Andy, asking him if he was interested in joining me at Disney World." Here is the actual letter:
Just a Gulf away...



This picture was taken at Oak Alley Plantation in December, 1985.

So, yes... I went to Disney World. Juliet and I had a long distance relationship until she moved in with me in New Orleans in October of 1985. We got involved with each other by writing letters and we kept writing letters to each other, even after we got married in 1986.  I've selected pieces of some of those letters to share with you.  Read these!  Her voice is loud and clear:

Selections from letters, 1984 to 1991


Juliet and a student at the 8th Grade Farewell Dance, FA Day Junior High, June, 1992

Who can be a college-educated, professional adult without having a resume or two? Here are two different versions of Juliet's resume— one from 1983 and the other from 1988. Did you know she was a bartender? A bill collector?

Juliet's resumes



Aside from the Mets and New York City, what else did Juliet really like?  Well, strangely enough, I have an exhaustive list of the things she loved:

My favorite things



The things one does to keep busy in the hospital.  Here is a list Juliet wrote down one night listing her all-time favorite meals:
My favorite meals



 
 

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