Angie

The first and only time I met my friend Flora’s mom Angie was at a wedding, though her reputation had proceeded her. People always spoke of her with a smile and a knowing twinkle in their eyes - I knew this was a special kind of person. Dan introduced me to her and she looked at me with daggers in her eyes and said, “So YOU’RE the one who’s stealing my boyfriend.” It might have been a tough choice, since she was drop dead gorgeous. Dan left to go back up to the head table and we managed to get over our shared love. We spent dinner delighting in her multiple Johnny Cash cell phone rings and the fact that she was having difficulty with a shirt that wouldn’t stay buttoned. At a 10 person table in the midst of a room filled with more than 200 perfect strangers, she made me feel first really uncomfortable, then a little bit scandalized, and quickly as though I’d known her forever and could laugh right along with her.

I didn’t have the opportunity to meet her again, and she lost a long battle with cancer this morning. Godspeed to a legend and a fighter.