Victoria Noe

Award-winning Author, Speaker, Activist

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Pierre Jalbert

Spending Time with Friends After They Die

Spending Time with Friends After They Die
Aug 11, 2015 by Victoria Noe
Marquis de Lafayette, by Francesco-Guiseppe Casanova, New-York Historical Society

I've lost a couple friends who occasionally make their presence known. Pierre died last year, at the age of 89.

In late May, I was excited to be in New York for Book Expo America because it meant I could see the fabulous Hirschfeld Century exhibit on the life and work of Al Hirschfeld at the New-York Historical Society. N-YHS has become one of my favorite places to explore since I did some research there for Friend Grief in the Military: Band of Friends.

Pierre was obsessed with the life of the Marie Joseph Paul Ives Roch Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette, the boy general who, at 19, arrived from...

Celebrating Your Friends

Celebrating Your Friends
Jan 09, 2015 by Victoria Noe
There was supposed to be a party today.“I want to make it to 90,” Pierre told me when he was 88. His parents had only lived to their 70s, but others in his family had lived longer.“We should have a party,” I suggested. He liked that idea. I mean, if you’re going to live that long, you deserve a celebration. “You could have dancing girls.”His eyes lit up. He liked that idea, too. We never had a chance to discuss details. Pierre died last January, a short time after his 89th birthday.We don’t always remember our friends on their birthdays. Sometimes we remember them on the day they died. November 22 is the day we remember President John F. Kennedy,...

"All My Friends Are Dead"

"All My Friends Are Dead"
Dec 04, 2014 by Victoria Noe
Pierre on "Combat"Growing up in the 60s, I was, along with my friends, definitely anti-war. I knew guys who served in Vietnam – two who died – but I didn’t agree with the war. It seemed odd to many that one of our favorite TV shows was Combat! It ran from 1962-67, and featured a squad of American soldiers in France after the D-Day invasion. We watched the show because we thought the actors were cute. And my favorite was Pierre Jalbert.Pierre was my “type”: under six feet tall, dark, lean. The French accent didn’t hurt. It was a great, long-distance fantasy…until we met.The night we metIt’s a long story that I won’t get into, but one night in 1984, I...