In memory of Laurie (Pagano) Williams, 12/28/1969 – 10/1/2025
My dear friend Laurie passed away on October 1, 2025 – two years to the day after my mom. Last week I attended her services and followed the family to Our Lady of Angels cemetery where her ashes are now inurned, at the Pagano site where her father and brother are already buried. From her gravesite it isn’t a far walk to my own cemetery plot, and Jonah’s – I bought them both when I prearranged our cremations a few years ago.
So you could say Laurie and I will be neighbors for eternity.
Hers was the fourth funeral of someone close to me since Mid-May. I’ve lost friends and family members before, but never in such quick succession, in this way that doesn’t allow me time to process any of the deaths individually but rather face a strange conglomerate of mortality. I’m mostly numb and having a very hard time feeling my feelings.
Writing about the person helps me, though, so I’m going to do that again. It’s hard to know how and I know it’ll never encapsulate her, but I have to try.
Laurie Pagano and I met in September of 1982, at the beginning of 8th grade at Shaker Junior High. I was a gangly, skinny girl who had just turned 13 and to make matters worse, was starting over at a brand new school. I knew no one at all. Laurie was still 12, four months younger – a cool kid in all black who immediately befriended me, took me under her wing, and kindly brought me into her friend circle. I don’t remember the day we met, but I know it didn’t take long for us to be fast friends, joined at the hip. I dubbed her “Lou” to set her apart from other Lauries we knew. In high school we embraced creativity and fun. Recording snippets of about a hundred songs into one “supersong” cassette tape, we were mash-up pioneers! We adored Boy George and Culture Club, sang along to classical music in fake opera style, sang The National Anthem in the school stairwells, basked under the tutelage of Ned Fleischer in chorus class, sat together in English, and got into a lot of mischief.
We passed hundreds of notes, then balled them up and burned them in our desks. We smoked cigarettes I stole from my mom. She numbed my right ear with snow in the girl’s bathroom, then pierced a second hole – this was a big deal at the time (and I can still wear an earring in it). We were busted smoking pot behind the school, went “car surfing” in the Latham Circle Mall parking lot, told our mothers we were sleeping over at one another’s houses and wandered the streets instead. We went to our first Grateful Dead show and became Deadheads together. We kept a tiny notebook full of silly sayings, inside jokes, and things that made us laugh until we cried. I still have it, and it still makes me smile.
Laurie was musically gifted. She was part of the Empire State Youth Orchestra and a special summer program at Skidmore College in Saratoga. In high school orchestra, she played viola with such skill that she was invited to audition at Juilliard. But then she got tendonitis and it was so severe she had surgery on both arms which destroyed her ability to play, and her dreams of playing professionally along with it. Around the same time, her periods were so painful she was taken to the hospital more than once by ambulance from school. She’d be bent double, gasping and crying in pain. Normally she handled pain so well that when this happened it scared the hell out of me.
A human embodiment of the expression “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” Laurie brushed herself off and carried on.
She married young and had her son Mark at age 20. Her little family embraced their love of the Dead, went on whole tours, and saw hundreds of shows together. I envied it so much, but I was at college in Oneonta and couldn’t risk my father’s wrath by dropping out to join them. I’m glad of it now, I suppose; that diploma got my foot in more than a few of life’s doors. At the time, though, I yearned to leave school behind and follow the Dead with Lou.
We lived together for a while, along with our friend Gina, when Laurie divorced and Mark was about 5. She was a singer and bongo/djembe drummer in a bunch of different bands, including a duo with our friend Chrys called Chrysalis Lore. A natural and confident performer, her voice was a combination of Janis Joplin and Boy George – a little rasp and a lot of grit. I applauded from the audience and loved watching her succeed.
Though she worked for a few different places, eventually she studied bookkeeping and bravely built her own business, bad-ass style. She saved her money and bought a house, but something like 3 weeks later, it burned to the ground when a fire at the neighbor’s home spread to hers. Although she and Mark got out okay, all their stuff was gone. Tenacious and undeterred, Laurie built a new home on the lot and started over again with nothing. Her little brother Tom, who she adored, passed away suddenly around this time too, and it killed her to lose him. Still she didn’t complain.
When Jonah was little and first started school at Wildwood, I ignored the “never work for a friend” life advice and worked part-time for her doing random office stuff. It’s a long story but basically we got in a fight and I quit, and for more than a decade starting in the mid-aughts, we didn’t talk. I told myself I didn’t miss her, but I did. Finally, I sent her a card with an apology, she called me, we reconciled, and for the next several years I had my friend again.
During the time we didn’t speak, she lost her father and had been fighting Crohn’s disease. Her poor body never really recovered after that. Laurie battled one thing after another – surgeries, medical procedures, exhaustion, insomnia, brain fog, and always the pain. A whole lot of pain. Still she didn’t complain. She fought even the idea of going on disability because she was strong and independent and determined, and she worked until she absolutely physically couldn’t do it anymore. She used a cane to get around and eventually, mostly, a wheelchair.
We found new ways to have fun. We went to movies and out to dinner and I wheeled her around the mall, where we’d explore Hilton’s Music store and buy stupid amounts of candy at Five Below. We saw a free outdoor big band show at the Crossings and watched the boomers dancing. I said “hell, we can dance too,” and wheeled her around in small weaving circles until we were both dizzy and laughing. We saw Culture Club at the NY State Fair under a big rainbow (they were amazing!) and went on a weekend trip to the Renaissance Faire, decked out in period garb. We went to a taste-along showing of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at Proctor’s.
Then we joined Rock Voices in the Summer of Queen (thanks to my friend KP, whose May 2024 text, “I have something that’s right up your alley” changed my life). On audition night with the whole chorus watching, I tried out for a solo in the song “You’re My Best Friend” – and I sang it directly to Lou. A few people said they were so touched by that it made them cry. I won the first half of the solo and Lou grinned proudly as I sang it on stage during our first concert together. For two more seasons we sang together, and she won a solo, too…the Bruce Springsteen part of We Are the World. It would be the last time she sang into a microphone on stage. Every Monday and Tuesday I picked her up and we ate dinner with the early birds at different diners, then usually parked at a trailhead or random parking lot and practiced our songs before heading to rehearsal – Mondays in Saratoga and Tuesdays in Colonie. We both lived for these days, always sat together in chorus, and wrote notes back and forth, stifling giggles…just like in high school.
It didn’t last long enough. During rehearsal one night she noticed a swollen area on her neck. It was the beginning of the end of our time together singing. She was diagnosed with throat cancer and endured a marathon surgery to remove the cancer, along with her voice box, and reconstruct her esophagus. After that she breathed through a tracheostomy hole and communicated by writing notes on a dry erase board.
She promised that next season she’d come with me to Rock Voices anyway, voice box or no, and joked she’d be my “service animal.” Her health declined quickly after that, though, and she wasn’t able to return. Everyone at Rock Voices missed her and asked about her every week. The news was never good, and I hated to tell it. After that, I almost quit the group altogether. I finally decided it would help my mental health to stick with it, since the singing and camaraderie are like medicine. Still, it’s so hard to go to rehearsals without her.
I’m happy to say this season of Rock Vouces is dedicated to her memory.
Laurie fought through and endured more than anyone I’ve ever known. She never lost her sense of humor, integrity, or ability to face each hurdle with proud persistence. I’m grateful we met, and especially grateful we reconnected and stayed close friends until the end.
Goodbye, Lou. I will remember you – and carry you, singing, always in my heart.
The Never Normal 