Annmarie Throckmorton, M.A.
- Nov 2, 2017

I Miss My Best Friend In Bloomington, Illinois.

I still miss Kathy McKinney, who was the best friend I had here in Bloomington, Illinois. I suppose I will always miss her. I stopped in to see Kathy almost every day as I went back and forth from my house to my parents’ house to provide the often difficult in-home care they needed. I would talk to Kathy as she worked in her garden. She shared my love of plants and often gave me a cutting of this, a division of that. She had a knack for listening to my troubles and then setting things right with a shift in attitude or an apt suggestion. She helped me make it through many difficult days. Then she declined and moved into senior assisted living. As I said, I still miss her.

Kathy McKinney had been a reporter for the Pantagraph newspaper, writing business news and op-eds such as the article “Lincoln Defense Rested on Chicken Bones” below, but she retired many years ago. I met Kathy at an art group where her sense of humor charmed me. She praised my artwork highly and often to others, which any artist finds attractive. Like most of my friends, she had a lot of my artwork in her home, gifts from me. I do not know what happened to my artwork after she moved to senior assisted living. As for my best friend Kathy, senescence took our friendship, but I will have memories of her wit and kindness for my own personal “forever”.