For My Ginna

Tomorrow is Sept. 11...a terrible day in history for our Country...so many mourning their losses.
I lost a friend on Sept. 11, but it was four years ago that day, that my dear friend, Ginna, lost her battle with cancer.

I first met Ginna when I lived in Boston so many years ago. I was an Art Consultant and Interior Designer, and she was my client...she had an insurance company, and bought a great deal of art from me. Then, I helped her with her house...We bonded immediately....

This woman had a heart of gold, and a wicked, wicked sense of humor...we could laugh at the most inappropriate stuff..
I moved to North Carolina, and I was so lonesome there...one day, the phone rang, and it was Ginna: "Jessica, go to the airport, pick up your ticket, and get on a plane for Boston"....She had a ticket waiting for me...picked me up in a limo, and we went to the Rolling Stone's "Steel Wheels" concert...front row...I could have spit on Mick Jagger (but, why would I?)...Next day, I went back to my Cinderella world.

I moved to Wisconsin, and we didn't see each other for years...we talked on the phone constantly...laughed alot, and sometimes, cried together.

Then, I got the call: "Jessica, it's not good...it's cancer"...She said, and I could hear her take a drag on her cigarette, and knew she was drinking her tenth Diet Pepsi of the day...."Please come see me while I still know who you are."

I went...She picked me up at the airport, sporting a beautiful, auburn wig..."I went to the transvestite wig store," she said in her wonderful, South Boston accent..."They have the best ones"

I spent a few weeks with her, and we talked, laughed, cried...held our breath, waiting for calls from the doctors...I had to go home...

Three months later, I went back...she called, and asked me to come and spend some of her last days with her...This time, I took a cab to the hospital, and was shocked when I saw her...Her hair had grown back white, but she was still beautiful...I told her she looked like Vanessa Redgrave...

She wanted out of the hospital in the worst way.."Nurse Rachet won't let me have my cigarettes or my Diet Pepsi", she complained....Her family was angry that she was still smoking, but being a smoker myself (I quit after she died), I understood what an addiction it was.

I and her siblings went to her house, and we emptied the living room, got a hospital bed, and tried to make it as comfortable as possible for her..She was devestated..she wanted her beautiful living room back..but, at least, her wonderful, funny dogs, (who all lived in kennels in the kitchen), were able to come and tell her "welcome home". I teased her about her tan...Ginna worked hard on her tan...it was a matter of fact thing...always tan, always beautiful; perfect hair, nails, makeup...right up to the end.

"Send me a sign," I asked her, when I finally had to go home..."I will," she said, and I kissed her goodbye on that tan cheek...

I left via the kitchen, and Stanley was in his little doggie/doll bed...he seemed to know....

Ginna passed on September 11th, four years ago - I think of her every day.

One day, not long after, I was taking a walk along a wooded path in Wisconsin...It was a crisp, lovely, Autumn day, and as I approached a bridge, a shower of golden leaves cascaded down on me...it was a Ginko tree, and they shed their leaves all at once..."Nice sign, Ginna", I whispered...