“You are looking good,” I told my friend Barbara, giving her crap about her new monk’s haircut. Cancer had made most of her hair fall out, except for a patch all around her head. If she wore a hat, you couldn’t really tell.
“Check out these jeans!” she said, showing me just how much they fell against her hips. “These used to be tight. All you have to do to drop twenty pounds is get cancer!” I groaned, but laughed as well. In the face of the worst thing possible, my brave friend still kept her sense of humor.
I went home that day and dug out the pants that I had been saving, the super skinny ones that I thought I would someday fit into again. I had thought, if I could just fit into these pants again, I would feel great about myself.
Now, they took on a new meaning. All I needed was a little tumor or two. I decided that fitting into these pants was not the thing I should be focusing on. I threw them away.
I refused to believe that Cancer would get her, but it did.
Her husband gave me some of her things, her creative bits and bobs and tools for making the precious little items she so revered. I miss my friend for her creativity, for her goodness of heart, for her humor, for her ability to see brilliant design in even the most ugly of places. She is still reminding me, in subtle ways, of how to live.
I have slowly looked through her things, letting myself discover her thoughts over time, not wanting to rush into it. In this way I feel she is still with me, letting me in on secrets she never shared with anyone else. I pulled out a box today labeled “cards”. (Barbara labeled everything and we could all learn how to organize from her)
Inside I pulled out a few squares, still in their cellophane, patiently waiting. Waiting to be sent, or read, or for the perfect moment to come.
“Dwell in possibility” –Emily Dickenson
“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake” –Thoreau
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.”
(also Thoreau)
And one, which I gave to a friend, that mentioned never really knowing the reasons why things happen, but rather, to keep asking the questions, keep exploring the only life we are given.
Thanks again Barbara, for reminding me of the things that I need to know, when I need to know them.
I will send out your cards.