Before Her Time

Mike D'Orso writes to me:

A dear friend of mine, a well-known local radio deejay and music producer here in the Norfolk area came down with cancer at about your age. During her last weeks, I visited her often at her parents' home, where she'd had to move back in the late stages of the illness.

She was a smart, savvy young woman (we were all young), with a heart large enough to climb into — a rare combination. Anyhow, during one of what turned out to be my last visits, she turned to me and said, "I know the paper is going to do some kind of big story when I die. I know they're going to have someone who doesn't know me talk to a bunch of people who hardly know me….," and she asked me if I would…