And so it goes…

I've been waiting to write this because I've been trying not to lose hope, but there comes a time…

I had the most fortunate opportunity to work with Janee Hull-Swift earlier this year on a most lovely play, The Cemetery Club. She, Donna Marie Sergi and I were the three besties in this show and I don't give it enough credit by saying it was a blast. It was so much more. It was a lovely play and we put so much fun and life into rehearsing it and then performing it for audiences. Every performance was a performance from the heart for all of us. I like to say it was well received. I still have people come up to me and say they loved the show… We put all of our heart into it and the result was something so special. This was the closing song for the play and It. Was. A. Perfect. Ending.

I write this also to say goodbye to Janee…

I still remember our audition for The Cemetery Club. The director, Mike Moffat, put the three of us, Janee, Donna and me, together for a scene and it was like we had worked together for years. It was hilarious and we played off of each other so well. He later told us that it was that scene that cemented his decision to cast us for that play. We spent three months rehearsing and then another month performing together and we all grew to love each other and this show. And that is what makes this so painful to write.

We talked of getting together again, but I got another role in another play and then Janee got a role in another play and Donna got a role in another play and we never found that opportunity to get together again after the cast party. I was so happy to see her at this last audition. We sat next to each other at the beginning of the audition and talked about stuff…what she had been up to and what I had been up to and I was happy to see her. I wasn't in the room when she collapsed (a burst aneurysm, we later learned…), but I rushed to the hospital when I found out, if nothing else, to make sure her husband wasn't alone. I saw her in the emergency room. She was intubated and unconscious. I don't believe she ever regained consciousness…

It's been over a week now… We hoped, we prayed, we so desperately wanted her to wake up, but it seems that we are only left with watching her drift away.

My heartbreak is nothing compared to the heartbreak of her husband and daughter and friends who have known her so much longer. But my heart is broken. 

And so it goes, and so it goes…

Farewell, dear friend… dear heart… dear "Ida", farewell.