I just drove past where my friend Hope died in 2002. We met in rehab in 1998 when I was 36 and she was 38. When she died she was 53. I never had the chance to ask her, but she probably chose that age so we would have one more thing to bond over in rehab.
Her car veered off the freeway into a tree. We didn’t know if it was suicide or accident. Nor if she was extra-opiated. Her conservative Catholic parents would not acknowledge the truth. We did know, as only fellow deep sufferers can, how sad and unhappy she was. Mercifully that ended. Hope Dominguez was a lovely, considerate and deeply thoughtful person. She lives on in those of us who knew and cared about her.
