Caitlin often found herself informally supervising her neighbor Stacy’s young son, Nate, providing him some stability while his mom sought time for herself. However, when Nate decorated the hallway walls with doodles during Caitlin’s absence, she was unjustly slapped with a $500 fine. Determined to set things right, Caitlin devised a plan for retribution.
Stacy had become accustomed to letting her young son, Nate, roam the hallway as a play area.
“It’s safe, Caitlin,” she’d assure me. “Plus, it’s their version of outdoor play.”
She would then retreat behind her door, leaving Nate to his devices, often while she entertained guests.
“I just need some downtime,” she confessed to me once in the laundry room. “I’m a grown woman with needs, you know. Being a single mom, you must get it.”
I understood her need for personal space, but I could never imagine letting my own son, Jackson, wander the hallways alone. Despite our general familiarity with the neighbors, the corridors didn’t feel completely secure.
Jackson, slightly older than Nate, seemed concerned about the younger boy, who often loitered alone, clutching his tattered teddy bear.
“Mom,” Jackson would say during his playtime, “maybe we should invite him over.”
Grateful for my son’s compassion, I agreed. It was better to keep both children within sight, ensuring their safety.
Thus, we began having Nate over for snacks, toys, and movies—a simple arrangement that brought him noticeable joy.
“He mentioned he likes playing with others,” Jackson noted one day. “I don’t think his mom spends much time with him.”
And interestingly, Stacy hardly acknowledged this setup. Once she realized Nate was safe with us, she seemed to extend her leisure time even more.
Eventually, it became routine for Nate to knock on our door whenever his mother let him out.
“Hello,” he’d say, teddy in hand. “I’m here to play.”
However, one day, we were away at my parents’ house for my mom’s birthday.
“I hope Nate will be okay,” Jackson expressed concern as we drove.
“Oh, honey,” I responded. “His mom is there. She’s responsible for his safety too.”
Upon our return, we were greeted by hallway walls covered in childish drawings—a colorful chaos of stick figures and squiggles.
“Nate must have had fun,” I remarked, searching for my keys.
“Isn’t he going to be in trouble?” Jackson asked, eyeing the artwork.
Fleetwood Mac star Stevie Nicks finally reveals what life changing advice Prince gave to her
She spent the night working on a song that would end up becoming the lead single from Nicks’ 1983 solo album “The Wild Heart” and the single went to No. 5 in the U.S. Billboard Top 100.
After writing her song ‘Stand Back” she asked for a meeting with Prince and 20 minutes later they were introduced to each other for the first time in a studio in Los Angeles.
Nicks said Prince listened to her song, inspired by his “Little Red Corvette” classic and went straight over to the keyboard to start adding his own parts.
He then got up, gave her a hug and left.
“He spoiled me for every band I’ve ever had because nobody can exactly re-create — not even with two piano players —what Prince did all by his little self,” she said in the book “Rock Lives.”
Nicks said as much as she admired Prince, she avoided a romantic relationship with him because she appreciated their musical connection.
“He spoiled me for every band I’ve ever had because nobody can exactly re-create — not even with two piano players —what Prince did all by his little self,” she said in the book “Rock Lives.”
Nicks said as much as she admired Prince, she avoided a romantic relationship with him because she appreciated their musical connection.
“I really wanted a musical relationship, and I had smartened up, even then,” she explained. “You’ll break up and never speak again. But he wasn’t interested in just that.”
In turn, Prince’s “When Doves Cry” was inspired by Nicks’ song “Edge of Seventeen.”
The Fleetwood Mac star said that she was heavily into drugs when she collaborated with Prince.
“The eighties were pretty bad drug years for me,” Stevie Nicks told The New Yorker. “And Prince was not very into drugs. And the fact that he ended up being on a lot of pain medication just blows my mind, because he was so against it, and he gave me so many lectures about it.”
The “Gypsy” singer said Prince warned her about her drug use. “I’d talk to him every once in a while on the phone, and we’d talk for hours, and he’d go, ‘You gotta be careful, Stevie.’ And I’d go, ‘I know, I know.’”
Following his death Nicks said, “My sadness is that he did die of an accidental drug overdose. He’s up there looking down, saying to me, ‘Sweetie, I can’t believe it happened either.’”
It seems Prince was right to be worried at the time as Nicks ended up in rehab twice. The singer checked into the Betty Ford clinic in 1986 for her cocaine addiction, and then went to another hospital in 1993 for her addiction to Klonopin, which Nicks said she was over-prescribed.
But in 1986, Nicks spoke to a plastic surgeon about her nose. The doctor told her she had burned a coin-sized hole in her nose from her cocaine abuse.
“I said, ‘What do you think about my nose?’” the singer recalled. “And he said, ‘Well, I think the next time you do a hit of cocaine, you could drop dead.’”
Following her conversation with the doctor, Nicks decided to check into the Betty Ford clinic. The move helped turn her life around and arguably saved her career and her life.
Thank goodness she had a conversation that set her on the right path. It sounds like it came at just the right time.
It is, however, a tragedy that Prince couldn’t get off the harmful opioids that he was on. Nicks’ story just confirms the musical genius he really was and how generous he was with his talent.
He will always be a musical legend, missed by millions.
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