Autumn days come quickly, like the running of a hound on the moor. - Irish proverb
Today is the Autumnal Equinox....autumn arrived at 4:21 a.m. Eastern, while most of us were still asleep. My autumn arrived earlier.
It has been brought to my attention that with my birthday on Saturday, I have entered the autumn of my life. To me, though, it still feels a lot like summer. Late summer, to be sure, but summer nonetheless. I still love the feeling of warm sun, the lazy songs of birds in the early morning and as evening closes in. I'll run barefoot anytime and am willing to throw off the trappings of civilisation to spend a few heathen hours in a meadow. As my mum used to say, "Just because there's snow on the roof, doesn't mean there isn't a fire in the furnace."
There is something very liberating about being "a woman of a certain age." I no longer give a fat rat's clavicle what most people think about the conventions. I've found the uptight ones to be very wrong about what constitutes "proper behaviour" and the rest are relaxed enough to live and let live, with kindness as their guiding principle.
The downside of being at this stage of life is that the losses come faster and closer together.
On Sunday, I lost my best friend to lung cancer. She'd been fighting Stage Four for three and a half years, and had done so with great fiestiness, courage, grace...and humour. She and I have been friends since childhood. As I've often said, we've been together "though sick and sin." I knew her family, and she knew mine. My mum loved her dearly...they had a mutual admiration thing going on. She was my best friend, and the sister of my heart.
In many ways, we were precocious children of the sixties. We both had older siblings who were "of age" then, but the things that happened, happened to us, too. The War to us meant Viet Nam. She was the one who really introduced me to acoustic guitar music and I was pea green that she could not only play the guitar, but she could whistle like a boy!! I never mastered either thing. The song I remember her playing most often was this one...
She kept at it till she had it down cold...and I never did get tired of hearing it.
If I start telling stories of our years as friends, we'll be here for quite some time. After all, we wandered the world for over half a century together! And, oh my dears...there are some stories!! We kept each other's secrets as I will continue to do. One in particular we discussed a while back. She had "something" to tell me and after a bit of hesitation, finally got the story out. I was a bit confused...
"Well, hell, woman! I knew that!!"
You never said anything.
"It's your story, dumbass, I figured you knew!."
I'll be damned.
"Yup!"
She was the one I leaned on through most of the worst moments of my life. She was the one I celebrated with during the best moments of my life. We knew each other's joys and sorrows, the secret wounds we never shared with anyone else. We mocked each other with the love and security that only close friends know, and called each other terrible names in the process. Our favourite compliment to each other was, "Bitch!" I doubt anyone else ever heard us, thank goodness!
While we were packing up my condo, right before I moved to New England, we came across a few boxes of "stuff" that had been in my family since my eldest sibling were children. All the flotsam and jetsam of a family that has begun to fall to dust, still tucked carefully away and toted around the world by the "keeper of the flame." After a few moments of quiet, she sat back on her heels and said,
Girl, you have been surrounded by death since I've known you!"
I started laughing, which really disconcerted her. "Death is my gift."
Huh?
"It's a line from Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, where the First Slayer tells Buffy that Death is her gift. That's how I've often felt; death has been an almost constant companion in my life...pets, family, friends, a spouse. It's my gift."
You know.....you're right.
"Yeah. Sucks, don't it?"
"The hardest thing in this world... is to live in it"
When she was diagnosed, we were both shocked into silence. We recovered quickly, however, and decided she was going to fight and I was going to be her one-woman cheering squad. She battled with the fierce determination that was at the heart of who she was. She wanted to live long enough to see her first grandchild born...and she did! She also lived to see several others born, the last one in early Spring of this year.
Two years ago, she made a trip to New England with her s.o. and we got to spend a whole day together. We both knew that our time together was coming to a close, no matter how hard she fought, or how well she did. Stage Four Lung Cancer will not be denied, in the end. In spite of that knowledge, we had a wonderful time. I showed her all the places I had discovered..."my" beach, the funny or goofy things that amused and delighted me...like the sign outside the mixed-business building: Haircuts....Body Piercing & Tattoos...Oil Change $29.95. I wondered aloud if you got your tattoo while they changed the oil...or after. Could you mix and match the offers? Haircut and tattoo? Never did find out. We talked a lot, reminisced a lot, talked about the future, laughed so much!! And when I left her at her hotel after a late lunch, I wondered if I'd ever see her again.
On my move to SC, I drove down through Virginia, where she lived. I stayed a few days with her and we did nothing more exciting than spend time together and talk....and wait for her youngest daughter to have her baby. My friend was more frail by then. The cancer had returned for the third time, and was resisting the regimen of drugs and treatments that had beaten it back in the past. I think we both knew the end would come sooner, rather than later, but we didn't dwell on it. We were happy just to be together one more time.
Her daughter finally had the baby a few days after I got to SC. That child never did have good timing! (smile) My friend had to wait before she could hold her newest granchild, so that whatever "bug" she had picked up wouldn't be transmitted to the baby...and she wouldn't catch any "baby cooties." Don't kid yourselves, friends...babies most definitely have cooties! I was as excited as she when she finally got to visit the newborn and hold her and make a fuss over her!! And I said so many Thank You prayers, I'm sure The Almighty got tired of them before I was finished.
As often happens, my friend was on my mind last week. We did that a lot, from the beginning. One of us would call the other and we'd both say, "I've been thinking about you!" We always knew. When I didn't hear from her on my birthday, I believe I knew on a deep level that something was wrong. We just never forgot each other's birthdays. I knew she hadn't been doing well, since the last time we spoke, she sounded....frail. To be honest..I didn't want to know. When you know the blow is coming, it's not surprising to want to avoid it.
Before I could call her this time....the word came to me that she was gone. She died as she had lived, surrounded by family and friends.
For the rest of my life, I will miss my dear friend. No one else knew my people the way she did nor knew my hopes and dreams, as I did hers. We had decades of history together, years of loving friendship that were such a gift to me! The best part of this is....we were smart enough to tell each other, from time to time, how much we meant to each other. So, the last thing I said to her was, "Love you, kiddo."
I used this picture when Cedwyn left us, and it is so appropriate to use as a tribute to my beloved friend.
Love you, kiddo. Thank you for the gift of your friendship. See you on the other side.
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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