At the Heart of Jasper Spring
How do I tell you about Jim and his family without sharing their private, heartrendingly beautiful lives? How do I write about them without crossing that tender divide between what is my story, and what is theirs? I can tell you that these stories have been intertwined since before 1874, when Pam’s great-grandfather married my children’s great-great-grandparents. I can tell you that my children’s father Mark has more memories of Pam and Jim than I will ever have, even after forty years of friendship . I can tell you that everyone thinks Pam and I are sis ter's (which we're not), but that their Border collie Joey was a full brother to our gentle collie Duke, and that both dogs lie buried in graves overlooking mountain meadows much like the meadow in Jim’s novel Jasper Sprin g ( read t he synopsis here ) . Jim’s life, like Alice's and Tucker 's ( the main characters in Jasper Spring ), has been steeped in contact with animals and natural resources. “I ha