“In Your Dreams” by Stevie Nicks

‘ love life is the stuff of rock-and-roll legend. The ethereal frontwoman of Fleetwood Mac was famously entangled with her bandmate Lindsay Buckingham, and their tumultuous relationship fueled the drama and intensity of their music. But there was also another, quieter love that shaped Nicks’ life: her best friend Robin Snyder, who died of leukemia in 1983.

Nicks had known Snyder since they were teenagers. She felt Snyder was the only person who really knew her and saw her as more than just a celebrity. When she was diagnosed with leukemia in 1981, Nicks was devastated. So devastated, in fact, that she did the last thing anyone expected — she married Snyder’s husband.

Snyder was married to Kim Anderson, and she’d become pregnant while her cancer was in remission. When the cancer came back, she chose to stop treatments and have her baby boy. Matthew was born just two days before she died.

Grief-stricken and determined to be there for Matthew, Nicks felt that the best thing she could do to honor her friend’s life was to marry Anderson and help raise their son. “I had this crazy, insane thought that Robin would want me to take care of Matthew,” Nicks told the Guardian. “But the fact is, Robin would not have wanted me to be married to a guy I didn’t love.”

The marriage would last only three months before Nicks realized she’d made a mistake and asked for a divorce. Nicks had hoped that being with Anderson would help heal their shared heartbreak and create a family for Matthew, but the relationship quickly fell apart.

Stevie Nicks in 2011

Though it was released nearly three decades later, Nicks’ song “In Your Dreams” captures some of the kindness and defiant optimism that likely drove her to attempt to hold Snyder’s family together. It captures a very specific moment in the grieving process: The desperate belief that if we just do things the right way, everything can be OK again.

Every night you

You love to hear me sing

It’s gonna be fine

You calm my fear down

It’s not a problem

No need to cry

Nicks seemed to believe, however briefly, that she could fill the emptiness left by her friend’s passing by taking her place as a mother and wife. While it’s not unheard of for grieving spouses and friends to fall in love, Nicks eventually had to admit that she had no feelings for Anderson. Still, she cared deeply for him and baby Matthew, and she wanted that love to be enough.

“In Your Dreams” feels almost manic at times in its optimism. There is an urgency behind the warmth, as if Nicks must convince the listener that everything will be fine before she can believe it, too.

Are all those tears necessary

For that pain that you carry?

You just send those tears away

Come in out of the darkness

It’s a beautiful day

The song is a rousing, bittersweet anthem for anyone trying to find light in a time of darkness. While Nicks couldn’t fill the emptiness left by Snyder’s passing, the love and determination that drove her to try may have helped carry her through the devastating experience of loss.