She liked to tell our origin story to new people we met. It was a funny story, and she told it well. Getting a laugh was her talent, and the way she reached out to people to show them who she was. A stranger in a strange land, trying to make sense of it all while seeing the absurdities of our lives almost as an outside observer. I knew her sister first, introduced to me by my first husband who was best friends with her husband in college, and then with her. It was a troupe by the time I joined. All beaded doorways and headbands and granny dresses in smoked filled apartments. Ah, the seventies. We were ensconced in those forbidden clouds for quite a while, thinking we had it all figured out. Have any of us laughed so hard for so long since those days?
One night much later, after said husband was out of the picture, I attended a grown up party at the sister’s house, dragging my guitar to play and sing a bit. I remember making Rice Krispie treats that were the best thing I had every tasted. When I got home to my small apartment, newly divorced with a sleeper couch and one chair, it had been ransacked. I didn’t know what to do, and called this friend (the sister). Remember I was pretty much a kid in my early twenties. After calling the police and my landlord, she sent her sister over to be with me to quell my fears of being alone in the apartment. The sister I had just met that night! Eileen. She was a few years younger than me, and we had hit it off, laughing a good deal of the night at the party. But this was serious, and we were rightly freaked and scared to stay in the apartment where the lock had been busted. Finally, we pushed the couch in front of the door and she grabbed a blanket to sleep there while I went to my bedroom. I actually fell asleep, but woke with a start to see Eileen hovering over me. We both screamed bloody murder for at least a full minute before collapsing on the bed in laughter. Later she told me she had been dating said ex-husband for a little while, which I took in stride. The seventies, remember? She always ended our origin story by telling people she dated the husband, but decided she would rather trade up and keep me as her friend. And so she did. For forty years.
It could have been either of us to die when we both got sick. And for a while, I thought it would be me. We didn’t know that her cancer would be cut out, chemoed, radiated and then return time after time for over 10 years. In retrospect, my complications and surgeries were cut and dry so to speak, and medications came out just as I needed them to survive. We waited for the cancer miracle for Eileen as she went through the torturous treatments time and again. She believed she could wait it out. Just live till the scientists come up with the right pill to get rid of the tumors. Truly, she was a warrior in her belief and her fortitude and I took up the mantle with her. In between treatments, scans, surgeries, she lived joyously as best as her body would allow. Just a month or so before her death, she boarded a plan to go half way across the country to attend a wedding. Buying a new dress and posing for a formal picture, looking gorgeous.
When she got the news that the doctors could do no more, she was devastated. They couldn’t operate again. Tumors too close to the heart, and entangled around other organs. No new chemo or drugs that they could try. The doctors suggested getting hospice involved. She fought the idea, until she conceded. Then she fought some of the measures she associated with dying. No oxygen, no hospital bed, no IV. Finally, she needed the bed and her husband made it happen. He had been doing everything according to her wishes. Screening her visitors and timing visits, delivering the medications and whatever she could keep down. I was allowed to visit a few times in the last days, for which I am grateful. We got to talk a little on the first of those days, and again she told our origin story to the hospice nurse—making her laugh out loud while she checked the meds.
Someone once told me you get used to losing friends as you get older. That is a lie. I have lost three now, and this one is the hardest by far. There are some people that you feel a connection with that transcends the actual facts of your relationship. Eileen was such a friend. As I sat with her on one of her last days, smoothing her hair back from her forehead, I told the hospice nurse that we had been friends for forty years. “Oh, I thought you were her sister,” she answered quickly. “Yes, I guess we really are,” I admitted.
We had talked over the years about how souls find each other through different lives, and that we were sure we had met before in a former life, our connection felt that comfortable and strong. And so I look forward to meeting again, my friend, my sister.
I truly loved and enjoyed reading this. Well, you also made me cry, but such is life. Thanks for sharing this beautiful tribute. I definitely want to hang out with you and hear more about the 70s.
Sitting in a puddle of tears, Judy. But firstly I want to say that I’m so very, very sorry for the loss of your “sister” and for your own ongoing illness challenges. You’re right--we’re at that age. I’m 77. It all sux.
It’s a wee bit different story than my late bff & I experienced, but it was a 45+ relationship when she passed in 3/2001. Seems like yesterday that she was still here, but yet another life has happened upon me in those 20+ years. C’est la vie, n’est-ce pas?
Your words show you both so clearly even though time has dripped on. The essence of your bond shined through, even though the darkness was at hand. Be kind to yourself in the coming days. Do something that she would have enjoyed doing with you. Sending my deepest condolences. Take care and be well, chérie.