I've been reading FBOFW since I was old enough to discover that boring stack of newspapers actually had comics in them. I was rapt with the first animated Christmas special featured on TV about young Elizabeth, still barely out of infancy, loses her stuffed bunny during a hectic Christmas rush at the shopping mall.
Having grown up with the Pattersons as many other Canadians have, I do feel a touch of sadness at its bittersweet "finale." The sense that we will not get to see them again reminds me of the tenuous connections we have to those around us, even fictional characters. The Pattersons have moved on, moved away, and now their lives are private ones, much as the lives of those friends and family who live apart from us, whether it's overseas, in the next county, or beyond life itself.
Over the years, Lynn Johnston brought us her special brand of humor, sweetness and sadness. The close of her family saga with the strip preceding the finale connected old and young, beginnings and endings, and reminded readers that through all of life, thick, thin, good and bad, those who have each other will endure.
Pattersons, you will be missed.
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