Given her age and the occupational hazards of La Vie Bohème (I’m guessing that AIDS alone would’ve claimed a lot of her friends?), she’s probably got a long mourning list.(1) Therefore, for eccentricity and literary/poetic/mythic associations, asphodèle:
Re: Starting a new thread because the windows are shrinking.
Source: A. ramosus, 30 April 2005 by Jean Tosti: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphodelus#/media/File:Asphodelus_ramosus7.jpg
(1)Patti Smith—-a Yank, but a Francophile and held in high regard there—-comes to mind.
ETA: you did say “middle-aged”, making her younger than I was imagining; for some reason I’d had a Boomer in mind.