I Lost a Good friend

I'm very much at a loss today. One of my very best friends for many years, my confidant, my confessor, my surrogate mother...my dearest daily friend was laid to rest. She passed on friday after a very unexpected, but very rapid illness took her from perfect health to this day we laid her to rest in less than three weeks. I stood beside her everyday in the hospital in disbelief at the progression. Only four weeks ago I was sitting in her kitchen drinking coffee, being my obnoxious self, taking her to the computer to show her my latest pieces of art, talking to her about her new beau....and today I stood in a crowd of her friends accumulated over the years of her life, listening to them bid her good bye...calling her the "Grand Dame"...which she was. To say I am in disbelief doesn't come close. I cannot even wrap my mind around  the pace that death came to claim her when she sat in that kitchen looking vigorous and laughing at my stupid stories.

I have not cried today. I know the tears are there because I feel the loneliness of that realization that I will never stand on her doorstep waiting for the door to open, or be able to pick up the phone and call her again. I know I face tomorrow without her there...and that all I have to remember her is from the cellphone pictures I took of her in the hospital when I forced her to smile, assuring her that everything was going to be okay.

Her Christmas gift is still in the closet.

Dec 23, 2007