Barb in November 2009. (Photo: Mike Hazard)

Mike Hazard—Barbara Friberg was my good neighbor at Lowertown Lofts Artists Cooperative. Her smile was, will always be a blessing. She passed away on Wednesday, November 13, 2019 after a long struggle with early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

“Barb was warm, grounded, humorous, and imaginative—she was someone you instinctively would trust,” says our friend Elizabeth Dickinson.

Barb and her daughter Zoë outside Lowertown Lofts Artists’ Cooperative, November 2010. (Photo: Mike Hazard)

When not home schooling daughter Zoë with husband Ken, baking tasty cookies, biking around Lowertown, or sewing, Barb did fine graphic design. I hired her for a couple projects once upon a time.

Zoë with her mom and dad, Barb and Ken, on her graduation. (Photo: Mike Hazard)

A family photo flashes back from June 2017. We attended a graduation party for Zoë. Zounds, 17 years can zoom past. A graduate of Great River School, she is heading to study at Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany with 1,200 students from 200 countries. She was about to become a neuroscientist. It takes global village. Dad and Mom beamed. We beamed. Go, Zoë, go.

Barb quotes Dr. Seuss, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

Good neighbors make life good. Your smile will always be a blessing, Barb.

Mike Hazard is a filmmaker, poet, and photographer. Nine of his films have been telecast nationally on public media. A collection of Hazard’s poems, This World Is Not Altogether Bad, is published by Red Dragonfly Press. He is working on Peace House People, a photography project with a homeless shelter.