My first contact with Hils was via the internet when, like so many others, I reached out to her because I'd been told she was familiar with the new weakness and pain I was experiencing so many, many years after childhood polio. Through that first - distant - contact, we became great friends. Our friendship was mostly, but thankfully not entirely, via email.

About 1998, Hils brought together an internet group of 12 women, united, at first, by PPS. Due to age and PPS, many of us were overweight and wanting, needing, to lose weight. But losing weight while coping with PPS was very difficult. The 12 women began exchanging emails about diet and frustration. Within a short period of time the subject of our emails enlarged and we were discussing problems in our lives - and receiving support and advice. We realized we had a "sisterhood". Specifically a PPS Sisterhood and it needed a name. I am not certain who came up with the title of our group but I am absolutely certain that Hils had a hand in it, and most likely was the originator of our moniker - The Sisterhood of the Fat Dragon Slayers (abbreviated as SFDS).

Over the next few years, members of the SFDS got together at various PPS conferences and meetings and made trips to personally visit other Sisters. I met Hils in person at the 1998 PPS symposium in Toronto and I was completely awestruck by this wonderful whirlwind - a woman who seemed to know everyone and who sought out the shy people, made them laugh and then brought them into a group making them feel instantly at home. I know, because I experienced this. 

After that conference, Hils came to visit me at my home in Ottawa. My husband, Dave, was just as impressed with her, her personality, her sense of wonder and her laugh, as I was. We had a lovely visit - but the photos from that visit seem to have disappeared although they remain clear in my memory.

Several years later, my husband attended a engineering conference in England and we took the opportunity to visit Hils and Alison in Lincoln. What a great visit we had and oh the laughs we shared. Again, the photos are missing, but the memories are not. That was the last time I saw Hils in person, but the SFDS remained a vibrant community and Hils was a big part of it.

In addition to being a loving force of nature, Hils was intelligent, determined and dedicated. She, almost single handed, brought PPS to the attention of the medical establishment that she interacted with. She researched PPS and contacted known specialists in the US and elsewhere, then brought this knowledge to the doctors and physical therapists in Lincoln and elsewhere.

And then there was Richard. We in the SFDS remember when Hils met Richard online. By then we were happily exchanging personal information and we were treated to discrete but glowing emails about this wonderful man in Florida. We cheered her on when she made her first visit to meet Richard and we were delighted that he clearly saw the spark and love in this woman. The SFDS followed their meeting and their eventual, lovely wedding. We were all so happy when Richard agreed to move to Lincoln and together they found an accessible house. And, as a cat person - I have to say that Hils and I, and the SFDS, exchanged many emails about their cat Dixie and his many antics.

Over time, life became more difficult for Richard and for Hils. She fought endless paper wars with the mindless and soulless medical establishment bureaurocracy - and occasionally, she won! Her level of frustration with the lack of rationality in these establishments was legendary, but she persevered and made their lives better. She even managed to get a hot tub for the backyard!

We (the SFDS) know how much she missed her grandson, Dain, and how incredibly delighted she and Richard were when Dain, Ali and Jeff came for a visit.

The SFDS has gotten smaller over the years as members passed away. We've stood by each other, as best we can. As Sisters we grieved the loss of husbands, but we also celebrated the weddings of children and the arrival of grandchildren and watched as they grew up. Still, always, there was the presence of Hils. We are indeed a family and we are deeply grieving her loss. For me, and probably for many of the SFDS, it feels like Hils is still at the other end of my email message. In some respects this is true, because we will always remember her and feel her presence.

Good Speed Hils! We know you and Richard and Dixie are enjoying an Alafia Rendezevous in the sky!

Love,

Marcia