Reality

Shindana Cooper was my friend and writing companion. She was a curious and open person and one I connected with immediately. She was a "griot" - a storyteller - and had the most amazing voice. I could listen to her talk for hours. We had our own mutual admiration club - she would wait for me on her front porch - tea chilling, salad at the ready and a clean, clear kitchen table upon which we could create together. I would drive as fast as I could to drop my kids at school and hit the highway to get to her house outside Baltimore - anticipating the warmth of her hug, her encouraging words, and open heart. We did not get these opportunities often enough and we both looked forward to the support a good friend can provide.

A few months after we met we shared a dorm room at Skidmore College while attending a week-long writer's conference. After a long day in classes we laid awake in the dark giggling like school girls, sharing lessons learned and life insights. I looked up above my bed to see glowing stars on the ceiling so I started to tell her about constellations and memories from my childhood of laying on our driveway in the summer nights with my family. She got really tinkled about my meanderings...laughing and saying her roommate was "seeing stars." You see, the stars were only above my bed and her eyesight was not great so she had no idea that the stars were real. This small, seemingly insignificant conversation became a binding agent for our relationship - believing in each other even though our version of reality was different.

Shindana's daughter called me one February morning last year to tell me of her passing. After the shock and a tear-filled day I went to the toy store and bought glow-in-the-dark stars. I keep them in a basket in my office to remind me of my good friend and the lesson learned that day at Skidmore -- Your reality and my reality are not always the same.