I sometimes have nightmares, and believe it is because I have a mild sleep apnea, the theory being that if you are startled awake during deepest sleep by not breathing, you are most privy to subconscious thoughts that never reach your conscious mind under ordinary circumstances. My subconscious anxiety is usually doom related. I am doing better with a prosthesis that keeps my nasal passages open and have been able to sleep through most nights. But last night I had a nightmare. I was startled awake and cried out that I was dying. Ed was sympathetic and not upset as he sometimes is because I have awakened him.

This morning Stephanie called and told me that her mother, my best friend from childhood, Penny, had died in the middle of the night. She was in hospice care and in a coma. She had cancer in her lung (she was not a smoker) and in her brain, and had suffered several small strokes in recent months. We had last spoken about two weeks ago and she had been difficult to understand because of stroke related issues. There is always the hope that, somehow, illness can be managed. It was not to be. She was almost two years older than I am, and would have been 83 on November 25th. It is probably just a coincidence that she died as I was having an anxiety attack, because it is just entirely possible that my preoccupation with her condition was the only factor.

There will be a memorial service and I will try to get to Chicago for that. Perhaps I can make some remarks, and it would be the first time I am able to do anything of the sort, but I am older and more in control than I used to be.


Meanwhile, her son, Billy, who had been a thorn in her side for many years, had stepped up to the plate, driving her to and from doctor’s appointments and the like.

Despite Billy's abrasive treatment of her, she had never kicked him out, never abandoned him, no matter how many difficulties he got into that she would bail him out of. I told her a few times that tough love would be more helpful but her mother’s mindset wouldn’t hear of it. She will no longer be here to isolate him from the consequences of his missteps, and it would be ironic if her death would finally make him wake up to his responsibilities, but too late for him to be the joy of her life that she deserved to have.

I am guessing his behavior toward her might come to haunt him but regrets don’t help the people you fail.

As for me, my mind wanders back to our joyful youth when we studied with the same teachers at Chicago Musical College, frequented the venues of the Near North Side, hobnobbed with musicians, some of whom later became famous. and were joined at the hip until I moved to New York. We never lost touch and I am grateful, at least, that she and Stephanie were able to visit for Christmas in 2004, the last time I saw her.

xx, Teal