My emotions continue in a roller coaster fashion of highs and lows as I struggle to find purpose in my life. I am without my soul mate and anchor in life, and am now trying to find out who I am without him. David Ford, his children and grandchildren, added so much dimension to my life. I know I am a better person for that.

After 22 years in the insurance industry, with moves to Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Albuquerque and Anaheim as I clawed and climbed my way up the corporate ladder in various management positions, I was a RIF (Reduction In Force) victim in 1991. David left the Jones, Nelson, Ford and Screeton law firm in California in 1994 and we became full time Nevada residents. After 3-4 years of Helen Homemaker and numerous travel adventures with David, I went back to gainful employment as an administrative assistant in the Engineering and Development of Lake Las Vegas Resort, a very upscale property development corporation. I used to have a secretary – now I am one!!

Well, not any more. Although the Las Vegas Resort folks were very kind to me, and I will always appreciate them, my new direction in life simply is not compatible with an 8 to 5 secretarial position. So, at the moment, I am technically unemployed, busy with my new house (Helen Homemaker again) and my new interests.

Interests include travel (obvious since I married David P. Ford!), movies, walking, gardening (30 rose bushes in the desert isn’t easy!), most fine arts, and my loving companion and buddy, BUBBA (AKC name is King Ali Bubba Gold)! Bubba is the 95-pound golden Labrador that David always wanted and enjoyed the last year of his life. Bubba will tell you that actually I am fully employed, and that he is my employer.

Just last year, he will tell you, he took me and those nice Fords from Cleveland up the hill to Dante's Peak in Death Valley. And then he will tell you that he waited ever so patiently while the three humans went and ate people food at the Furnace Creek Inn.

Stop by some time to visit me in Las Vegas; I will let you talk to Bubba, to get the real truth...