Hi all, I've decided I will post more often because I have lost close friends, my sis is gone, my husband is in a wheelchair, and I am fatigued. When Ed goes anywhere important he wants me along. He stays in the car after giving me instructions, and I go into the bank, or the facility and get his work done. I lost Penny, a childhood friend who hated going to doctors. She got cancer, it metatasized and she was gone. I'm in close touch with her daughter, Stephanie. Recently I got in touch with the sister of the boyfriend I had when I was 16. He was killed in a robbery in 1948. She lives in LaGrange, Illinois, having moved out of Chicago when they built the Congress Street super highway that swallowed her house. When I was 19, having been dumped by my then boyfriend, I decided to move to New York City. So I left home. I had made some science fiction friends and when I got to LaGuardia Airport I called one of them, Martin Greenberg, publisher of Gnome Press, and he came and got me. There was a Hydra (club of sci fi professionals) meeting that week and he invited me. It was in Greenwich Village. The apartment was crowded. I sat on the floor and next to me on the sofa was L. Jerome Stanton elsewise known as Jay. He put his hand on my cheek. The next day we met in the village at 6th Avenue and Greenwich Avenue. We went for a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, when we got back, we went grocery shopping and then to his apartment on 8th Avenue. We ate steak and lima beans and drank red wine. I spent the night with him and never left. We were married a month later. It was hello,let's get married. He was 21 years older than me and I didn't care. He was a brilliant electronics engineer and he was very knowledgeable about every discipline out there. Physics? piece of cake. Electronics, easy. He taught me the Morse code, impressed because I learned it instantly. Sometimes I message him in the here after, using his call sign, W2WHM and signing off with 73 OM which stands for goodbye Ol man and this is standard, regardless of how old your contact is. Men refer to their wives as "my XYL" meaning ex young lady. For some reason 73 is goodbye. There is a magazine called CQ (stands for continuous wave) and in the back of it there is a section for members who have died. They call it "Silent Keys". Jay had been a radio officer in the Merchant Marine during WWII. His ship was torpedoed and he was in a lifeboat for 15 days. He told me never to give up hope. We were married for 42 years and then he died.It was the worst day of my life. I walked around in a daze thinking, "Jay is dead, Jay is dead." I couldn't wrap my brain around reality. I still think of him every day. xx, Teal