A Reunion....

I attended my husband's 20th High School Class Reunion in 1998. My husband and I did not know each other during our high school years. While we grew up in the same city, we attended different high schools and had a completely separate circle of friends. I am older than my husband as well. There were perhaps a handful of people I would know at this reunion, most of them males.

This would be the first time his classmates would meet his wife so I was interested in making a good impression. My husband's class was a small one and it was part of a very close knit community. He was the captain of his football team, very popular and well liked. When you meet my husband you are immediately drawn to his personality. It's a big personality, it fills a room and people like to be around him. I knew that I would be spending a lot of this evening watching him enjoy his classmates and they, him. I would need to amuse myself as I wanted him to have fun and reconnect with old friends.

After cocktails, small talk and a lovely dinner the reunion found it's legs and people started to dance and reminisce. My husband, who hates to dance, was repeatedly drawn to the dance floor much to my amusement. When he wasn't dancing he was sitting and talking with someone. Where was I in all of this? Sitting at our table and smiling. Of course the classmates were friendly and polite but wanted to spend time with each other and not with me, someone they didn't know.

Sitting at the table, doing my best to not look bored (I was), I was approached by a petite, pretty brunette with eyes the color of dark chocolate. Her name was Ann Marie and she introduced herself and told me that I would know her older sister, Barbara. It was an ice breaker and a welcome one. She sat and we talked a while. I liked her immediately, she was such a genuine individual. We decided we needed drinks refreshed and went off to the bar. She turns and said...."Let's get the girls out dancing" and collected a few ladies along the walk to the dance floor. She introduced me around. Even though my husband had performed his perfunctory duties at cocktail hour, Ann Marie's introductions were more intimate.

After dancing off and on for a while, she took me around the room making sure I met all of her friends. I had such a fun time. My husband kept coming over to see if I was enjoying myself and Ann Marie would say to him..."Go back to the jock table"... and we would all laugh. I would have to say I had never expected to have that much fun in a roomful of people I hardly knew.

A few weeks after the reunion I received, in the mail, a photo someone took that night of the two of us, Ann Marie and me. With it Ann Marie enclosed a lovely note and wanted to stay in touch. She touched me so sweetly, of course I intended to keep in touch. We did keep in touch.

Ann Marie passed away last weekend.

She succumbed to a particularly aggressive form of Breast Cancer that had metastasized. She battled her illness for several years, bravely. When we got the news my mind went right back to the reunion. In the ten years since Ann Marie and I had seen each other, enjoyed conversation, parties and laughter... it was that reunion that my mind seems to have chosen to be the note that will play within me when I think of her.

I want to be remembered this way....in the way I will always remember Ann Marie. As soon as I think of her a smile appears...I remember her kindness, her sweet personality. I remember those beautiful eyes that betrayed her inner warmth. I want to be remembered as a generous soul, someone who extends herself first, someone who gives, simply gives. Just like Ann Marie.

These are the very words I wrote in a note to her daughter this week, and similar ones to her two sisters. Ann Marie was a special woman to a lot of people. I had the distinct privilege to have been just one among her many friends.

So to Ann Marie, I close my eyes and whisper....Rest well my friend. We will talk again dolce', we will talk again.

At the next Reunion

Indeed.