The news reached me about the passing of a friend. She was 83, and though she died in October, I only heard about it yesterday. We’d fallen out of touch, and I wish I’d made a better effort to stay connected.

Don’t we all end up wishing that one way or another?

Last night, I dreamed about her. She was working in my favorite coffee chop right down the street, but I couldn’t talk to her.

We met in the Peace Corps back in 1993. She was 63 and I was 23. She was a Jewish lady from New York City and I was a lapsed Catholic from small town Florida.

I loved how she would wave her arm, pint her finger, and say, “Now, let me tell you something…”

A favorite memory is of the two of us, walking through a Bulgarian village back to our dormitory late at night. The streets lights didn’t work. The town saved money that way. Holes and bits of broken concrete dotted the sidewalk. It was so dark, we couldn’t see our own feet. We couldn’t see each other.

We linked arms and walked. One of us would stumble and the other would help keep us upright. We each had to stretch one arm out in front of us to make sure we weren’t going to run into anything. One minute we talked about the darkness and the next we gossiped about our fellow Peace Corps volunteers.

A few days later when someone said something about the lack of electricity in some areas, she told them about our trek past market stalls unable to see anything, and she began her story with, “Now, let me tell you something…”