I just received word from Tracy Loreng that my classmate at Pascack Hills, Liisa Nabstedt, passed away on Sunday at the age of 42. The details of her passing have not been released. She leaves behind her loving husband and two young children.
Liisa is now the 12th classmate to pass away, and as I wrote about last year when Doug Kessler finally succumbed to colon cancer, there is an unease about this that makes it hard to accept in someone still so very young. Our class from 1986 has seen its share of tragedy in the years just prior to and since we graduated.
My memories of Liisa from two eras. The first being from our days growing up, where she was always a good-hearted person who accepted people as they were and didn't judge them. She played on the volleyball team in high school, and was involved in various extracurricular activities. She played one of the lead roles in the musical Lil' Abner from our senior year. She loved being in the musicals and singing in general. She was a member of the Bergen County Choir and eventually was the captain of her collegiate volleyball team.
We weren't close friends, but we were friendly with each other. The second era of memories came from when I was helping to plan our 20-year high school reunion in 2006.
Liisa was one of the first people that I 'found' on-line in trying to track down everyone. And we began a great email correspondence in which she shared with me how wonderful her life was going. She was very excited about coming to the reunion, and I know that she and her husband had a terrific time because she couldn't stop talking about for weeks on end afterwards. Unfortunately, life got in the way and I lost touch with her over the last two years, so the news of her passing is a little bit hard to take.
All that I could find today on-line about her passing is an obituary that describes when funeral services will be held, which will be on Friday in Park Ridge. And I really am heartbroken at the fact that I didn't get the chance to tell her how wonderful the reconnection between us in the ramp-up to and the cool-down after the reunion was for me, and that I can't be there in person to pay my respects to her family.
My heartfelt prayers and condolences go out to her husband Joe (with whom I was fortunate to share a few wonderful laughs with at the reunion), and her two children Sabrina and Logan, whom she was so proud of, as well as her sister and the many friends that she had. She will be missed.
2 comments:
Thank you Jon, for this wonderful remembrance of my dear childhood friend.
Liisa was my cousin and I loved her as a sister, she was a kind hearted person and I miss her every day...
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