Losing a Friend

On Monday night, my friend Jean died. She had had three strokes last year, and I had been visiting her at her home for several months, often with my two dogs in tow. We talked about American pressed glass, which we both collect, traveling to Europe and cities in the US, our families and friends. Jean was an airline stewardess, so she had been to the cities I love, Paris and London and New York. She loved beautiful things like crystal and glass and enjoyed showing off her collection. She also appreciated that I would bring some of my collection to her to look over since she couldn't come to my house with all its wheel-chair-unfriendly stairs.

She could be a pretty cranky lady, and she had no patience for people who couldn't be bothered to do a thing well. When she asked me about Notre Dame Cathedral and what I liked best about it, I told her about the stone-carved, beheaded saints whose still open eyes look down on church-goers. But I liked Chartes Cathedral better, with its Blue Madonna stained glass and huge sundial. She agreed. She wouldn't put up with vague, "Oh it was beautiful," comments. She wanted details. She wanted to know that I had thought about the places I had been. This also meant she had little patience for herself as she tried to say the words that would form in her brain, but that her vocal muscles refused to push out. She would hit her leg and curse her body for its failure.

Jean reminded me of my grandmother, another woman who liked a job to be done well, no matter how inconsequential it seemed. And my grandmother could also be pretty critical of people, and often sound like she never had a good word to say. Like my grandmother, as Jean got sicker, she also got softer. She would let us know very clearly and vocally when she was done with coffee hour and ready to go home, but she would also smile a little more and be more forgiving.

Unlike my grandmother, Jean left us pretty quickly. I noticed on my visits to her she was getting weaker, sinking deeper into her chair. When she went into the hospital just over a week ago, I went to see her in the ICU. She was like a baby bird in its nest. Her tiny frame was supported by pillows, her mouth open as she slept, her eyes in relief against her pale skin. I prayed with her, spoke with her, just in little bits. I brought a picture of my dogs, and she lit up a little when I showed it to her. I stroked her hair and told her about my memories of Ireland, how green it was, how I hoped she was dreaming of Dublin. She held my hand and called me Friend. I told her I loved her, and I meant it. She said she loved me back as she drifted back to sleep.

Fr. Charlie called me Monday morning to tell me that Jean was able to go home before she died, so she was able to go on her terms, in her house as she wanted to. But I wasn't sad. I had cried when I said goodbye to her when I left her on Saturday morning for a conference, and my prayers had been for God to please, please take her and end her suffering. She had cancer eating away at her body. She was on morphine to control her pain. It was no way to go on. I am relieved that she is with Jesus now, that all her frustration and pain are over.

I am writing this here because this is not the last time I will sit by someone's chair in her home, or at her hospital bed, and watch her die. That I will tell stories and listen to stories, be a friend to a person whose life will not last a year, or two, or ten. My grandmother sits in an assisted living apartment in Ohio, and I cannot be with her to talk to her, to help her go to her death. When I do get to see her, she doesn't remember me. She's closer to her childhood now than to the present, and picks up the paper several times as day as if she hasn't seen it before. I pray for her not to suffer, and I pray that I can serve her spirit by serving others. I pray that someone speaks to her each day as I spoke to Jean. I pray that my friend will look down on me and continue to see herself, her best self, in me.