We'll meet again

My friend Dorothy died today. It was expected. She had stage-3 lung cancer. The treatments were too much for her. So she ended them and decided to die with the dignity and grace in which she lived her life.

She entered hospice a little over a week ago. So many friends came to see her there that it actually overwhelmed her daughter. I managed to go there once to visit and the next day to take her a painting I did of some holly hocks. She couldn’t have real flowers because they affected her breathing. She was happy to get the painting, I didn’t stay long, but I told her that I loved her, and she said she would see me soon.

I stayed away these last few days trying not to interfere with the family’s time to be alone with her. But I craved her company. I will miss her. Even though she was probably almost 30 years my senior, she was a kindred spirit. I used to visit her in her little house and just chat and joke and tell her about all my misbegotten exploits. She had a great laugh.

She was the type that got that little mischievous twinkle in her eyes and I knew she understood the crazy point I was trying to convey. She’d nod and then say something to make me laugh. I only knew Dorothy a short time, but she totally stole my heart. When I gave her the flower painting she said; “I wish we’d have met sooner.” I agree Dorothy, I agree.

But then, how many people have we known for twenty, even thirty years, and we only speak to them randomly and sporadically at best. Sometimes they reach out from the past and blast our present with a flush of love so full it’s a little unsettling, but no less profound. So I think whether it is a year or thirty that we've known someone, when they’re a true kindred spirit, the connection is unbreakable. No matter how much time goes by, it’s there — even death can’t make it fade.

That’s the weird thing — it doesn’t change. It doesn’t lessen in intensity, it buzzes like a cicada on a humid fall evening. Undiminished, the love just persists. And even though it is extremely painful, I think I prefer the pain of love and chasm of loss to the alternative. And I wish, with all my heart, that I am able to say those three precious words to all those who make my life complete, fracture it irreparably, and leave it for other realms — either expectedly or in a mercilessly abrupt way.

Au revoir Dorothy; we'll meet again.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Drw4aZhdT8
(Vera Lynn singing; We'll meet again on YouTube)

Vera Lynn in the 40's