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A very dear friend of more than 35 years died today. I am relieved that her suffering has ended - lung cancer is a terrible way to go. As I write it's been only a few hours and I am already missing her presence in the world.
During the last several months when she was in the process of dying 3000 miles away I would phone every few days just to hear her voice on her answering machine. If she felt well enough to talk, we had long conversations filled with happy reminiscences frequently interrupted by her coughing. When she wasn't up to talking I would get an update from her daughter, her only child whom I have also loved since she was 10.
My dear friend was diagnosed with untreatable lung cancer more than three years ago, so while her comparative good health for so long came as a surprise, her death today did not. I have been mourning her fate all this time, preparing for my life without her in it but today it is finally done.
At my age and with my history I am not a stranger to losing dear ones. I lived in San Francisco in the 80's and 90's. With many unconventional friends, my circle was mightily and painfully reduced by the AIDS epidemic. Each death was protracted and awful and the person was lost to me and the world far too soon.
More recently, the deaths of friends I have lost were due to cancer and heart conditions, the usual killers of my cohort. That these are diseases of "old age" doesn't make sense to me. These who died are my contemporaries, dead in their 60's and early 70's That certainly doesn't seem old. These friends definitely went too young with much more life in them to enjoy, with many memories for us still to make.
When someone you love dies one is not only deprived of their company and the enrichment they bring to your life in the present and the potential future, but what is crucial is your shared past. If this person was an important part of your life at any point - and what dear friend was not - he or she is also custodian of that shared time together. To whom can one turn to say "Remember when we....?" Or "What was the name of that place where we....?" An important part of your own past disappears with each friend's demise and you are left grieving not only the loss of their existence but, as memory falters, some of your own as well.
So some of the details of the events we shared may grow fuzzy but each beloved friend who has lived and shared my affections and parts of my life holds a place in my heart. It grows ever more crowded in there as the list grows longer, and heavy, very heavy. The pain of each loss is renewed with each new one. Rest in peace, my cherished friend, all my cherished friends. Ave atque vale.
