In the fall of 1975, I was on a school bus with my sister. We were leaving our family farm to get to the consolidated Catholic high school on the north end of Flint, Michigan. The daily ride was usually long and I was always tired. I remember getting up at 5:30 or 6 in the morning to prepare for the day. My body was usually on auto pilot as I fought the sleep and the fatigue that seemed to be a way of life for my 15-year-old body.
How it Started
The road to school seemed serpentine to me. There was no direct line there as we stopped to pick up students all over that part of the county. But somewhere around Center Road, we stopped and some of the African American students boarded. A new girl was with them. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Her hair was slicked back with a central part. She had two hair buns, one on each side of her head. She was neatly dressed and seemed very shy. She had the biggest, brownest eyes I had ever seen. I couldn’t stop looking at her, which in retrospect was probably a little disrespectful. But I didn’t mean to be. She just looked exotic to me.
She caught my gaze and we both quickly looked away. That’s how our first bus ride went.
Mr. Pete got to speak to her before I did. This was before Mr. Pete and I were an item. This new girl was going to be in the marching band but she had missed all of the summer practices and band camp. So it was his responsibility as drum major, to teach this new sophomore how to march on the football field before band class.
It wasn’t until band class that I saw her again. She was a flutist!! I thought we certainly were going to be good friends. Until she played. She had a beautiful tone and she played musically. This girl was going to be competition. I’m sure she heard me play too. It was on!
I found out her name was Twana Hill. She had spent her first year of high school at our rival school, Southwestern. She had played in the band there and was considered to be a very good player, on par with their star flutist who happened to be an older boy player! Coming to our school, Powers Catholic, she thought there wouldn’t be much competition and she was right. Except for me.
Her mother didn’t like the atmosphere her daughter was in at Southwestern and made the sacrifice to send her to the Catholic high school. And Twana was miserable about it. She didn’t want to leave her friends, she didn’t want to be in a Catholic school, and she certainly didn’t want to be in what she considered to be a lame band.
I’m not exactly sure how we became friends. But I do remember we were fiercely competitive when it came to who played the flute better. Twana could also play the piano and sing. She sang beautifully – even better than she played the flute.
High School
I think our friendship developed slowly during all of those long bus rides. We started talking about everything. We did the usual teenage gossip, and we discussed things going on in the world. She insisted I wasn’t really a white girl and should embrace my Mexican heritage. I thought her mom was a bully. We would argue and fight and then pick up where we left off the next day.
Our flute competition gradually turned to collaboration. We started making music together at home, and eventually in a student music group. We were actually a good duo.
One time our band took a trip to compete in a competition. Mr. Pete had just broken up with girlfriend, who had dumped him to date one of his buddies. This was not the first time she had done such a thing. It seemed as if she had gone through just about every available guy in the band. But Pete looked so heartbroken on that trip. Twana and I wanted to give her a good talking to. I think we just made passive aggressive comments instead.
Poor Pete. He followed his old squeeze around with big puppy dog eyes, looking for her to show some flash of recognition or attention. Twana and I felt sorry for him and wanted to shake him so badly and say, “Wake up! She’s no good for you. There’s a better girl for you out there. Find her.” That was a bonding moment for me and Twana. Eventually Pete did find someone better for him. And three years later he married me!
Relationships
When we graduated from high school, we both attended Baker College in the fall. She went into business, and I pursued allied health. I’m not sure why we did things that way. We were both smart enough to have gotten into Michigan state or the University of Michigan. I’m pretty sure our boyfriends were part of that decision.
Twana was dating a guy I couldn’t stand. His name was Phillip and I thought he was bad for her. That was the one thing her mom and I agreed on. But every weekend she would go out with him, and then I would do my duty to sympathetically listen to her woes on Monday.
One day she told me happily, “I have a date this weekend.”
I sighed and groaned. “Phillip, again?”
“No. Isaiah!” And that was the beginning of Twana and Ike and Ellie and Peter.
Ike was friendly, funny, and kind. He was handsome and always smiling. He wasn’t hard to like. Two years later we were both engaged. Peter and I got married in August. Twana and Ike got married the very next month. We were in each other’s weddings. Pete was even a groomsman for Ike!
We did all of our wedding planning and showers. Dress shopping for bridal gowns and bridesmaid dresses. After Twana and Ike’s wedding, Pete and I were decompressing at home and Twana called. “How was it?” she asked. “Do you think my wedding turned out okay?”
“It was perfect,” I said.
We did that all the time after that. She called me at work one day to ask me how much food to buy for one couple. I was still figuring that out myself. We talked about husbands and what it was like to be married. We shared stories and confidences.
Young wives
When the babies started coming I was in awe of Twana. She was so gentle and loving with her baby. I remember her lovingly rubbing lotion into his beautiful skin. A few years later, I emulated everything I could remember from her example. We were even pregnant together in 1992. Our baby boys were roughly the same age.
And that’s kind of how the last 40 some years went by. We touched base often, at least a couple of times a year or when we needed help. If we didn’t speak for months, when we did talk we talked for hours and hours.
When I think back to some of the hardest days of my life, Twana was there. She came down to visit me when I delivered a stillborn baby. She came when my mother died. But she was also there for baptisms and weddings. She is Gabe’s godmother.
Cancer
In 2022, she called me to let me know that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. I had worked for a breast surgeon and I knew she recommended Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book. I sent her a copy. Twana said it was invaluable in knowing what questions to ask and how to synthesize the information they gave her. She made it through her sessions of radiation and surgery. They told her she didn’t need any chemo. She got her strength back and she was fine.
But in 2024 a persistent pain in her right hip kept bothering her. When she told me about it I feared metastasis immediately. But I do tend to go to the worst case scenario. I waited until her doctor’s appointment where they told her it was arthritis and she just needed physical therapy. Twana went religiously but the pain wasn’t getting any better. In fact, it was worse. Eventually they determined the cancer was back. Stage IV.
After that we communicated almost weekly. She would record her doctor’s visits and send them to me. I would try to do some research and give her my thoughts. I told her she was on a journey and that I would be there with her in whatever way we could. I sent her links to Beat Cancer with Me.com.
I also prayed the 54-Day Rosary for her complete healing and included her in my St. Andrew Novena. I like to think that bought her a few pain free months after her total hip replacement.
Twana continued to work in a nursing home caring for others. One day she was at a death bed and the person dying asked if she knew the song, His Eye is on the Sparrow. She said she did and she gently sang it for him. After he passed, the family asked if she would sing it for his funeral. She said she would.
Twana mentioned that on the day of the funeral, her hip was in excruciating pain. She limped into the church and found her spot beside the little organ. When it came time for her to sing the pastor said, “We are so excited to have this lovely singer with us today. Ms. Twana, would you join us up in the front of the church?” Twana said she felt panic rising up inside of her, but she made herself walk all the way to the front and then sang her Sparrow song beautifully. It was so beautiful in fact, a few weeks later she was asked to return and sing it again for another funeral. We had a good laugh about that.
The last recording I got from her was about pain management. Her hip was flaring up again and her L1 had collapsed. They seemed to have a good plan in place for her. I didn’t bother her for a couple of weeks, trying not to be intrusive. Then she called me.
“Sorry, El,” she said. “I had to finish talking to my hospice nurse.”
“Hospice nurse! When did this happen?”
In that short two weeks her condition had deteriorated. There were mets in her liver and walking and bending was impossible. Her job had let her go because she just couldn’t do it any more. She was so sad about that because she loved her job so much. Ike was still working, but she was getting to a point where she needed someone to care for her besides him. It was time for hospice.
I have been replaying that conversation in my mind over and over. We both bared our souls. I honestly told her how much I hated this and that I wanted to be there with her. But she asked me not to come. “Don’t be mad Ell. I really need you to understand.”
I did understand. I had watched my own mother die from cancer 17 years ago. I knew what she was going to face. And I knew what I had to face. She was the one strong enough to say it.
In a way, death is like giving birth. You have to relax, release, and let it happen. Part of dying is giving up those things in life that keep us clinging to this world. I was one of those things for her. I didn’t want to make it harder by hanging on. But I did text Ike a lot. I asked him to remind her that I loved her, and he did.
Twana at my Mom’s funeral in 2009
Still I continued to pray for her. Every time I prayed the rosary I would picture Twana and I with the Lord, and he would touch her hip and look at us with love. I was cautiously hopeful of a miracle. I asked some friends to pray for her at the beatification of Bishop Sheen too. Surely that would give us a miracle.
I prayed so hard that I was actually shocked when I got the word that Twana had passed away. Shocked, and saddened and now a little bewildered. What does the rest of my life look like without my friend and confidant to share it with?
Grief
I’m back from the funeral, which I will blog about later. I feel like I am still covered in a fog. I’ve been here before. It’s the feeling of slogging through activities of daily living while the rest of the world just moves on. I’ve spent two weeks being mad at God. Now I’m more into the questioning phase of grief.
I know this will just take time. This was a hard loss.