Denise had a beautiful, purposeful walk

I liked Denise from the moment I met her, but I really grew to love her when we started hiking together. I was unemployed and she and Joey had just started their retirement so we had the beautiful Bay Area that Denise loved and knew so well as our own personal playground. To Bass Lake or Point Reyes or down the peninsula, through forests, on beaches, along the bluffs we'd ramble and talk…and talk…and talk. The comics in the newspaper, old movies, wild flowers, Broadway and Europe, books, The New Yorker, history, language, and also love and life and death and everything between, Denise's world was so filled with passion for beauty and ideas and people that we could have spent a thousand thousand days walking and never wanted for topics or for laughs. Those were long, magical, crystal, sun-washed, stolen days that will rank among the best I ever hope to have.

A few years back I told Denise that I'd met a woman I liked and I was thinking of asking her on a date. "Take her hiking," Denise told me, "and bring sandwiches." I did. My wife of 4+ years now, Leah joined our hikes and we found we functioned as well a quartet as we had as a trio. We soon became the beneficiary of Denise's legendary love of and prowess for travel. We met up in a little Umbrian hill town called Spello. Denise booked a wonderful vacation house where we settled in for a solid week of Italian bliss. The rhythm of those days was so pure: drinking coffee in the mornings, venturing out for the Herald Tribune and sharing one crossword puzzle among us, marching all over Italy (Denise had a beautiful, purposeful walk), 20 miles in one day, eating ice cream, playing cards in the evenings and right on down the line down to the last detail. We have a picture on our mantel I've been looking at nearly every day of Joe and Denise and Leah and I eating dinner there and all looking wonderfully happy.

Less than a year ago (seems like such a short time now) we met up with Joe and Denise in NY to see a few shows and then spend time on the Jersey Shore. When we finally reached the hotel in Manhattan (Leah 6 months pregnant, hot and tired) Denise sprung into action and was a blur. She had snacks for us and fruit and bagels for breakfast the next day and were we o.k. and here's where to go if we needed anything and could she do anything for us and a hundred little tips and things to make us feel welcome and comfortable in the home away from home she'd picked out for all of us. That was Denise.

She was gracious, classy, generous, loving, kind, fascinating, witty, sophisticated, beautifully mannered, reverent, irreverent, funny, intelligent, curious, and hungry for experience and for life and for the good in life.

I was so flattered that Denise took me as a friend. I looked up to her and I thought the world of her. Whether it was the Chinese New Year's treasure hunt, the lighting of the Christmas trees on Nob Hill, a poker party, standing on a midtown street corner dissecting a play we'd just seen or goofing off playing Boggle and catching Jeopardy, I've always treasured my time with her and with Joe as something special. I find myself sitting here sifting through so many vivid memories and hearing echoes of conversations, hearing her voice and feeling a tremendous sense of loss and sadness that my friend is gone. I learned so much from her about life and about how to be happy. I miss her.

- Brady Bellis