WINNIE 09/08/00

Subj: Winnie
Date: Fri Sep 8 22:03:02 EDT 2000

Winnie died. The phone call came today. Ivan Smith called, telling me she had gone, just about a year after her husband.

It was Winnie that I was talking about last night. It really shook me up, what happened yesterday. I found myself looking for the word to describe how I felt, but finally had to accept that I do not have words to describe the feelings. I do know that I was disturbed by the strangeness of the experience. I was frightened when I went to bed, although I would not admit it.

In the night, I awoke with chilled feet, even though they were covered with a cotton flannel sheet, a North Star wool blanket, and my warm red robe. I woke up Elsa & John around 3:00 a.m., not because I had to pay a visit to Lamb but because I needed to assure myself that I could still stand. I feared that my circulation had stopped.

I do not know how to explain this, but it felt as if the aura around me was somehow unsettled. I was glad when morning light dawned.

I will miss Winnie. Another of my compatriots gone on before. My circle of contemporaries continues to shrink, like my bones.

I have known Winnie, who was 88, since the early 1930s. I wonder what it was about Winnie that drew my spirit to hers as she was preparing to exit this world? Have any of you had unusual experiences with people so close to death? I find myself wondering.

Love to all my dear friends & loved ones - Gocky

reposted in sweet memory of its author, KATHARINE REYNOLDS LOCKHART, by her scribe/daughter, Elsa Lockhart Murphy aka Deev, in celebration of the 05/14 centenary of Gocky's birth