Mourning the loss of a friend

Map of where our friend was killed

This was a sad day.

A group of us gathered to honor and remember the 52-year-old woman who died Wednesday after being hit by a car on Monday. She had been walking her dog at the corner of Canal and Lyman streets in Holyoke around 6:30 p.m. when a 63-year-old man hit her.

It is unclear if her name will be released. So I am not even going to say who the group of people was or where we met. In that way it is hard to write about. But I can say that she was a wonderful caring person with so much to give. We got food from a restaurant that she liked and shared our thoughts and feelings.

We had a lot in common, so that in addition to having a professional relationship, we had a personal one.

I felt that in a certain way I had let her down. People in the know said, not so. But as I said to another person at our gathering, when somebody dies, it is natural to glom onto one particular thing that is making you cry, where in reality it is the passing in general. I told this person that when my mother died right after Thanksgiving and I had left New York to be home with my children instead of staying with her, I kept dwelling on how I should have stayed. I only managed to let it go when a cousin said that I had given her the gift of doing what she asked me to do, which was to go back home.

Today a member of our group led us in a meditation. She said it is OK to feel how you feel, whatever that is. I am struggling with a recurrent image of our friend being hit, probably hit on the head, because the first reports were of head injuries suffered. I imagine you just need to let that kind of thing run its course and think of how she lived, not how she died. It is corny to say, but you could feel the love in that room today.

In reading the version of the accident reported on Masslive.com, my former place of employment, I'm reminded of how stupid some of the comments can be, such as this one posted by Iowa Cowboy:  "This is why the RMV needs to crack down on older drivers. I’d like to see a law passed that would require any driver over 55 to have a DOT medical exam and carry a DOT medical card to operate any vehicle."

Tonight, I watched Joe announce the UMASS/UCONN hockey game  It was a good game, with UMASS coming out ahead 4-2 for the team's third straight win.

While actually the words should be "listen to" him announce, watching is also accurate; while of course watching the game, I sit behind the announcers' booth, thereby also watching the back of his head. While some proud parents might be taking videos of their sons skating, I take videos of such feats as Joe going out on the ice between periods to announce and retrieve the award-winning puck in the chuck a puck. It's the little things. What can you say.

When staff jettisoned UMASS T-shirts into the crowd, an overenthusiastic fan in front of me jumped up and elbowed me in the forehead. My glasses flew into my lap. Tears filled my eyes.

Me: "DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU DID????"

Fan, unapologetically: "Oh, sorry."

Putting my water bottle on my forehead, I had to wonder if my reaction had to do partially with the man who hit our friend.

Afterwards I went into the bathroom to check out my face and observed that Mr. Fan-atic's elbow had broken my skin. My head aches a little, but not as much as my heart does.