Reunion

Monday night I spent eight hours with a wonderful woman, Adjowah, on the left above. After 21 years we talked and talked about the person that continues to mean so much in each of our lives, my deceased daughter Angela. Adjowah and Angela were best friends in New York City from 1985-1989, until Angela's death. Those few years meant more to Adjowah than I ever imagined.

I don't mean to exclude my son. He too loved hearing about those years and it helped him remember aspects of his sister he'd forgotten - like her humor and her role as a leader. In his father's home she had always remained quiet and reserved compared to the person she was in her Manhattan life. We all marveled at the difference between recollections among adults opposed to experiences as a teenager is living them in real time - with all of the confusion, questioning and fogginess of the moment. 

Adjowah found him on facebook the week of Angela's birthday. This year both he and I struggled with sadness, and it made that the contact even more poignant. She decided then to drive from a craft show in LA, where she sold her work, to our neck of the woods in Southern California. We ate Thai food and hung out at my newly painted, remodeled space. It was so good we are planning on meeting again. She said that she comes south from her home in Oakland 3 or 4 times a year. It is like a reunion with family and I am very pleased.

BTW, the picture came from Adjowah the week or so after she spoke to M. She had gotten it from Angela's other friend, Emily, on the right. (I called this gang the vowel girls, Angela, Adjowah, Emily and Onika.) It was taken in our building's back yard, which was a part of my 175 sf apartment's allocated outdoor space. Pretty awful quality but I love it because I'd totally forgotten that M. had spray painted the message on the wall - his loving thought for me. Too bad he misspelled it.