Wherein Life Continues To Turn On A Dime

Just as I arrived home yesterday afternoon, I received a phone call from D letting me know that our friend Angi had passed away.

I know I talk about my college roommate M pretty often but I actually had two college roommates. M and I only shared a room for the first semester before we threatened to kill each other. This stemmed from the fact that, with the exception of classes, M and I did everything together. All this togetherness cramped into a 10 X 15 dorm room got to be a bit much. After I threw my John Travolta “Saturday Night Fever” trash can down the hall at her, M and I decided that continuing to share a dorm room would be a huge mistake.

Enter Angi. She was from the town just south of mine. She and Dee had graduated from the local Catholic high school together and were good friends. She was dating a fellow band geek and good friend of mine Troy. She needed a new roommate and wanted out of her original un-air conditioned dorm. We spent the next two semesters in roommate bliss. We were excellent friends but because we weren’t up each other’s ass 24/7, we could live together in peace and harmony. Or at least as much peace and harmony as a pack rat and a neat freak can live with. (Hint: I’m not the neat freak)

Angi was one of the smartest, wittiest, cutest girls I knew. We laughed so much in that year. We were smart college girls and we were having a great time. I remember when the movie “Kentucky Fried Movie” came to the theater in the student union. It ran for a week and we happened to catch it the first night it was there. We laughed so hard that we went back the next night. We kept catching things we’d missed the first time so we saw it every night that it ran, laughing each time as if we’d never seen it before. I actually have the video of this movie and I bet I’m one of the few folks who do.

I left school after only three semesters (only true regret of my life) but Angi stayed on to get her degree in English Journalism. She was a fantastic writer and had a great career ahead of her. She and Troy wound up getting married pretty soon after she graduated. We were all living back home and would see each other as often as we could. D had moved back home and I remember one night when the three of us girls had a slumber party at D’s. This is before Angi and Troy got married. Troy showed up and we ended up riding around town, all three girls in our pajamas, drinking Boone’s Farm Tickled Pink and T J Swan’s Steppin’ Out while Troy drove us around in his Trans Am.

For reasons of their own that I never fully understood, Troy and Angi began to isolate themselves. They moved away and joined a church that became their entire life. They had two beautiful daughters, Victoria and Katherine. Our communications became sparse. The spirited Angi of our college days was gone.


At the end of 1990, as I was recovering from a hysterectomy at the age of 29 thanks to uterine cancer, Angi was discovering a tumor in her right cheek just in front of her ear. It was malignant and wrapped around a facial nerve. When they removed it she sustained a minor bit of damage to that nerve forever affecting that side of her face. She went through her treatments and the cancer was gone. She and I both had lots of life ahead of us, cancer free.


Until about five years ago. Angi found out that she had several abdominal tumors and the prognosis was not good. With no treatment, she had a matter of weeks. With treatment, she had maybe a year. She went through a round of treatment but the results were not promising. She made the decision for quality over quantity of life. She’d always home schooled the girls and wanted to spend as much time as she possibly could with them. She did see a holistic doctor and the tumors began to shrink.


We saw them not long after she’d gotten sick and got to enjoy a long visit and lunch with them at K’s that day. She looked great and was eating only the healthiest of foods per the instructions of the holistic doc. I did hear that they took her to Mexico for some treatments several years ago.

Apparently they’ve been living here in Baton Rouge for some time. None of us even knew until we got the word that Angi died yesterday. I have to say that I’m sad and even hurt because I would have wanted to spend time with her. Maybe she didn’t want us to see her. Maybe she just wanted her last days to be spent with Troy and the girls.

So that’s how we come to today. A beautiful 45 year old woman who loved her little girls with everything she had is now gone. I can’t say that I hate cancer often enough. If you can, please say a little prayer or send a good thought to Angi’s family as they begin to deal with losing her. I know they can use it.