Her name was Sharon. Few of us know her last name or each other’s for that matter, but that has never been important.

We meet most mornings dressed for combat, little or no makeup, hair uncombed in my case, and that’s why I love it there so much. It’s the neighborhood “Y” and if your shorts are too long or your outfit outdated, no one cares.

Few of us are close friends, we don’t call each other on a regular basis and it’s little more than a wave if we see each at the grocery store in town. And I’ve always kind of liked that too, in an anti-social sort of way. We come together for an hour each morning and then we scatter, no heavy conversations, no commitments.

Sharon always stood in the front left of our cardio and strength classes, always took a bike a little closer to the door in spin. I did not know how old she was exactly and for a long time, like everyone else, not much at all about her.

Then one day when we were standing around making small talk before class, she mentioned that she had read something I had written. And on another day she casually mentioned that her husband had been in the radio business (never bothering to tell me his professional name, which would have tipped me off seeing as he is a legend in Chicago broadcasting).

We talked more and more after that, before class, standing in the parking lot afterward. I told her about my children and she told me about hers and her grandchildren.

I’ve always admired the women older than me in our classes, sweating along with those in some cases 20 and 30 years younger. I’ll look at them and wonder if I’ll still be coming at their age, if I’ll still be capable of keeping up. They all look terrific but you can tell they are long past worrying about their abs or their thighs.

Part of the reason I don’t talk much at the “Y” is because I am such an awful morning person, stiff and sleepy and in no mood for chatter. But I think I’ve gotten better over the last few years since meeting Sharon. In fact, I probably bug people now, asking who has seen the latest “Biggest Loser” and other important questions.

And maybe I’m imagining it, but I’ve noticed much more of a community feeling around the place over the last few years. I stand around before class and in the parking lot after a lot now. I groan with the others in the middle of a particularly excruciating hour. I look for my pals and notice when one of the regulars is not there.

Whenever Sharon missed a week or two, I never thought much about it because she and her husband enjoyed some wonderful vacations and always filled me in when she returned. And then her good friend Peggy told us Sharon was sick, that it was leukemia.

I kept meaning to get her phone number, to do more than send a group card. But Peggy gave us updates every so often, enough that were optimistic that I went on my way after class, immersed in my life, sure I would see her soon, front row, left side.

And then I saw Peggy this week and she was crying. It wasn’t good. Sharon’s condition had been deteriorating rapidly.
She passed away on Wednesday.
And I realize there’s no such thing as casual acquaintances.
Not at our “Y,” anyway.

Blogs pause, but life rarely does.
How to catch up?

Homecoming dances and choir concerts, soccer tournaments and family visits, lots of work, a good thing. Balloon Boy, a bad thing. An evil germ this week that had me searching a website on “Common Cold vs. Swine Flu – How to Tell the Difference.”

An entire website inviting me to analyze my every symptom? I mean, what could be better? My family wouldn’t do it with me, which annoyed me greatly; my husband Rick’s response to my every sickness from runny nose to coma, “You’re fine.” But it would be fun for me, give me something to do to distract me from my suffering.

Fever is rare with a cold but usually present with flu, it told me. I reached 100.0 once in the middle of the night on the little plastic digital thermometer we were forced to buy when I dropped the good one and had the fire dept. out to scoop up the mercury (another day, another blog).  So that’s pretty bad, and surely that cheap thermometer was wrong and I was much sicker.

Next I analyzed my cough – productive or non-productive? We’ll move on as even I did not wish to ponder this.
Aches – slight with cold, severe with flu. Moderate, I decided, and possibly due to my ‘Y’ class but I’m no doctor, they could have been severe.
I definitely had chills, which are flu-like. Sixty percent of people with chills have the flu, it read. Sixty percent, wow. I didn’t like my odds, I told my daughter, who ignored me.
Tiredness – mild with a cold, mild to severe with the flu. Come on. That’s a gimmee. Of course, I’m exhausted.

Headache, check. Rapid onset, check. Sore throat, check. Oh wait, that’s for a cold. Very confusing. Chest discomfort? If I coughed hard enough.
Turns out Rick was right, after one day of mild suffering and one day of major suffering, I was pretty darned close to fine, even I have to admit.

I’m thinking my resistance was low due to Homecoming, even though I didn’t actually go. But if you don’t think that watching your firstborn child get dressed up for her first formal dance, ask her date’s mother to pin a boutonniere on her son’s lapel, and then board a bus last used by strippers at a bachelor party is not heart-wrenching, you’ve never done it.

I admit up front that making fun of this is not unlike when journalists criticize “the media.” I was a willing participant in this extravaganza that would put most proms, wedding weekends and coronations to shame.

I’m pretty sure they went to the Homecoming Dance, although my nephew Daniel participated in his Homecoming festivities without actually going to Homecoming, which I’m told is quite common with upperclassmen too cool to participate in the very occasion they are celebrating.
Amanda, being a freshman, was not too cool. So she and the other girls dressed up – most transforming into 35-year-old women – put on very high heels that made me wince just to look at, and paired off with their dates, most of whom were fortunate enough to come up to the girls’ shoulders.

Then they took pictures (except for Rick and I because our camera was broken), went to dinner, to the dance, to the “after-dance activity,” where they ate again, to girls’ and boys’ sleepovers, where they snacked and visited each other’s houses because they had only been together the last eight hours, and then finally, had a lavish, 12-course breakfast, bringing the grand total of the weekend to the price of a medium-sized, used car.
Kidding. That would be inappropriate and lack all sense of common decency and perspective. It would probably be closer to a small, used car.

But Amanda was happy and after all, that’s the important thing. If your child is happy, you’re happy.

Even when you’re really sick with something that could very well have been a new strain of the flu and no one cares.