My Twin

 Freshman year in college I met Pat Penny. We became friends and loved chess. While doing intramural chess everyone we played was confused on who they would play because our names were so close. We laughed about it and decided we must be twins.

We were both history majors being in many classes together and by our senior year were both married to different partners. She was pregnant. The daughter she bore now works at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

After graduation we lost touch. At our 20th reunion another friend who had kept in touch gave me her address and phone number, we've been in contact now for 25 years.

She changed her name to Anne Littlewolf upon becoming an artist. At the time she lived in Gunnison, Colorado, now she's in the village of Tijeras in the Monzano mountains not far from Albuquerque. For many years we've met and shared a meal at local restaurants every couple of months. 

I own two of her oil paintings making me in the illustrious company of John Denver and Ricky Skaggs who boasts the same.

Her husband died of an aneurism. She wrote and illustrated a children's book. I desktop published it and have sold over a hundred copies. I talked her into doing it in a coloring book and she did that as well. The last copies of the book I gave to the hospice nurses when my mother was in care, and they were appreciative of the copies.

The book Friends Forever is about two fish who are good friends, one dies and the other mourns and gets angry at the new fish in the tank until she decides to make new friends. It was catharsis for her loss.

Her last e-mail mentioned an aggressive cancer leaving her weak and with little time.

It's that time in my life where all I went to high school and college are ending up in the obits. Getting old sucks.

Here's a few frames from the book. I plan to publish it at a local printer to give out at her funeral.