Paulette Sullivan, 83, of Key Largo, Florida, passed away at home after a courageous battle with lung cancer. In her final moments, she was surrounded by her family and cherished pets, exactly where she belonged. Paulette was born June 13, 1943, in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Canada, the eldest daughter in a family of five girls. As the oldest, she became a caretaker early, an experience that helped forge the fierce independence, self-reliance, and grit that would define her for the rest of her life. In her late teens, Paulette moved to Briarcliff, New York, where she met her first husband, Jack, and later had two children, Karen Farrell and John Farrell. She eventually settled in Brewster, New York, where, armed with a high school education, formidable intelligence, and sheer determination, she worked her way up to become the town librarian. Somehow, she seemed to know every one of the thousands of books in the collection, which surprised absolutely no one who knew her. It was also in New York that her life became intertwined with Stephen “Steve” Sullivan. Steve had loved Paulette from the time he first saw her when he was 18 years old. They were friends before they were husband and wife, and they would spend nearly 50 years together. Their marriage, like most lives honestly lived, was not always easy or perfect. There were difficult years alongside the good ones, but through it all they built a life and a family they were deeply proud of and shared many years of genuine love and companionship. Steve brought his young daughter, Jamie, into their family, and seven years later, Paulette and Steve welcomed their youngest daughter, Amanda. Paulette was Nana to Kirsten Decker and Sadie Myers, and Greatnana to Kirsten’s daughter, Isla. Across the generations, she passed down some of her most defining traits: toughness, independence, curiosity, resilience, and a deep love of animals and the natural world. Paulette was not a woman who lit up a room with an easily offered smile or effusive words of praise. That simply wasn't her. But she could set one on fire with her sharp mind, sharper mouth, and wicked wit. She never met a feral kitten in a parking lot that didn't somehow end up coming home. She rarely encountered a garden she couldn't make flourish or a thrift shop in which she couldn't uncover a treasure. She loved animals, books, gardening, a good intellectual debate, and the satisfaction of knowing exactly what she thought about something, whether or not anyone had asked. She was selective in her friendships and loyal to the people she chose. She was equally content in solitude. Paulette never needed to be entertained and, as her children heard countless times growing up, “Only boring people get bored.” Any child foolish enough to announce their boredom within earshot generally found a broom or some other household chore placed promptly in their hands. She kept her feelings close to the vest. Praise was earned and affection was rarely put into words or openly displayed. Understanding how Paulette felt about you often required paying attention to what she didn't say directly. Her pride had a way of revealing itself elsewhere, particularly in the stories she told about the people she loved. She saw in Karen her own instinct to nurture things from the ground up, reflected in Karen’s love of growing her own food and commitment to living a sustainable life. In Amanda, she saw a shared curiosity about the natural world and a determination to explore it firsthand. Paulette proudly told others of Amanda’s travels to faraway places and corners of the world she herself had once explored through the pages of books. Paulette could size up a person quickly and cut through nonsense even faster. She had strong opinions, an intimidating intellect, and little interest in making herself smaller or softer for anyone else's comfort. Paulette was more black licorice than vanilla: strong, distinctive, occasionally difficult, definitely not for everyone, and entirely comfortable with that fact. The people who loved her knew exactly who they were getting. They loved her not in spite of who she was, but because there was only ever one version of Paulette. She was complicated. She was formidable. She was funny. She was fiercely independent. And she was ours. In whatever comes next, we hope Paulette has found herself with a glass of Carlo Rossi Chablis over ice, gardening gloves nearby, a cat or five at her feet, an endless stack of books she hasn't yet read, and perhaps a few men who bear a suspicious resemblance to a young Clint Eastwood. We picture her looking out across an impossibly large garden in full bloom, finally with nowhere she needs to be and no one telling her what to do. Paulette watched her daughters take their first breaths. In the end, they had the privilege of holding her hand as she took her last, with Steve beside them after a lifetime of loving her. We will miss her more than she would probably have been comfortable hearing us say. We'll take it from here, Mom.

“In lieu of sending flowers, Paulette would have loved for you to plant something in her memory and think of her as it grows. She always preferred her flowers alive”

 Please consider donations to the Upper Keys Humane Society in Paulette's name.

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