She was barely into her thirties when i first met her in North Bay, where she lived. We bonded over Quantum Leap, a sci-fi adventure series (1989-1993) starring Scot Bakula, later of Star Trek and NCIS New Orleans fame. Leap was always a cult thing, so we knew we were slightly different from her cohorts and my students. (I was teaching a summer creative writing course at Canadore College in North Bay.) She was my most obstreperous pupil—if you could call her that—and the most delightful.

She wrote me. People do. I always answer. I’m very polite. But she kept on and I kept on answering—of course, first, about Quantum Leap. And other things. By the time I went back to Canadore, five years later, we were friends..I met her writers’ group, her best friend Marta Attema, also a writer. Marla and Marta came to visit me—I was still living in Muskoka, on Bass Lake— and how I wish we could go back in time! No Pain.

Well, Marla was always in pain, but she never let it dominate or define her.