good lord, but I heard some truly horrible news today about an old friend. She was the wife of a colleague at a company where my dh worked several years ago. She was about my age, with a great sense of humor, and we became friends. We even got pregnant around the same time (my third child, her first). Physically, she was everything that I was not: very tall, impossibly thin, regal features, startling blue eyes, and flaming red hair. She looked like she could be Marcia Cross’ gorgeous younger sister.

She had her son two weeks before my Cathy was born. We used to take them to baby gym classes together once a week, and she’d come here for breakfast beforehand and lunch afterwards. We bonded in the way that most moms do, talking about our hopes and dreams for our children, and how to achieve them without losing sight of our own dreams in the process.

Eventually, her husband left the company, and after a while, we lost touch. My husband bumped into her dh about a year ago on a business trip, and found out they’d just had another child, a little girl. I could just imagine how beautiful her baby was, just like her mom.

Last Friday, she returned from a trip to Florida, feeling tired and a bit rundown. She rested all day on Saturday, but by Easter Sunday, she knew she needed to see a doctor. Her husband ended up calling an ambulance when they realized she was too weak to even get out of bed. The diagnosis: leukemia.

There wasn’t even time to treat her. By Wednesday, she was dead. She was only 42 years old.

I can’t even imagine what her husband is going through, and how the children are coping with the loss of their mother. Her son’s 8th birthday is just a few weeks away; how can you possibly explain something like this to a child?

I know that Life has a way of throwing you curveballs when you least expect them, but this is just too much.