My friend

I have a friend.  She is brave, bold and daring.  When I thought I wanted to move clear across the country, even though I had never been more than an hour from home by myself,  to a place where I didn’t know anyone, and wanted to go to school there, she said that she would go too.  Once we got there and I said I thought it might be fun to go to Las Vegas because I had never been there before, she said “Let’s go!”  My friend was always the fun one, that wasn’t afraid to try things. 

I’m thinking about my friend today because today is her birthday.  She would have been 35.  She left my life almost 14 years ago.  Sometimes it still seems like yesterday. 

When your friend and roommate is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer when you both are 21 years old, it kind of makes your world turn upside down.  It makes the things that you worried about just the day before seem kind of trivial.  Life takes on a somewhat different meaning.  There were many times when life seemed so unfair.  She was supposed to be having fun in college and working towards her degree, not in the hospital having treatments.

Her mom came out for a visit the week of her doctor’s appointment.  Then after her diagnosis, stayed.  Her mom became like my mom.  The bonds that we formed during those trying times are ones that can never be broken.  Even in death.  She and her mom are my eternal friends.