Sunday, March 22, 2009

....goodbye, dear friend

*sigh* What do I say?
My dear, OLD *inside joke* friend, Chris, lost her fight with ovarian cancer Sunday, March 15th. (The day after my Mother-in-Law passed away...) She found out 3 1/2 years ago, when she was already in stage 4. Kept ignoring the pain. She had major surgery, taking out ALOT of her insides, trying to make sure they got it all and that it was all 'clean'. New meds, no more meds, new treatment, not gonna do it anymore...it finally got one lung, then, the other. She would have entered the Hospice progam the next day, Monday.
35+ years..... how many friends have you had for over 35 years?
I crocheted her a prayer shawl a year or so ago. I could not believe the memories that flooded back while I crocheted. She was a big part of my past. We worked together at my parents El Taco, we became neighbors and best friends. We played pool ALOT and got so good, that we could beat most of the local guys. We spent evenings together doing stupid stuff in the hot, summer nights...stealing peaches comes to mind! We traveled to Seattle from Arizona twice. When hubby and I got married and lived in another town, she would come visit us. We would flop a mattress out on the living room floor and laugh all night, until we pee'ed ourselves!
We hadn't seen each other in person for about 26 years, but, she was the kind of friend that when you talked to her those couple of times a year, that it was just like yesterday...and we laughed!!! Oh, how we laughed. She was always the OLDER one! HA! She was only 17 days older than me, but, I never let her forget that she was the OLD friend! She died a week before her 54th birthday...ha, fitting....she didn't want to be older than me.
I am so sad...I loved you Chris...I know that you knew it.
She lasted so much longer than they ever thought she would. Even her pastor praised her bubbly, optimistic attitude for outliving her time. She was such a lover of life. And, it came to me that she did what God intends for us to do--she 'used it up'. She was the happy, bubbly, cheerful type that sometimes you would just want to 'slap her'! ha ha...I know she would appreciate that. She would say 'gee' and 'garsh'...mostly for effect, but, she was sweet, truly sweet. Not fake sweet.
She LOVED her cats and horses! She gagged me, when she would open a can of peas...and eat just peas! She dipped everything in mustard! She always started our phone calls with 'hey, kid'. It came to me the afternoon that I found out, as I drove to get my TAXES done, (yeah, really crappy day) that I could just hear her saying, as she looked around heaven.....'gee, this isn't so bad'.
Today was her birthday. I would have called her and gave her a hard time about being OLDER. And, we would have laughed and laughed through the whole call....
...until we meet again, my friend.....
these are from 1976...on one of our trips to Seattle...

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I am sorry to hear about your loss. What a beautiful posting in her memory though.. hugs to you hon!

Anonymous said...

She sounds like a great friend, this is a big loss, but you have all these wonderful memories of her. That is great !!

Love

Carol............. said...

I'm sorry about your loss. I'm 59 and have been blessed with 2 friends that I've known for well over 30 years. I cannot even imagine what it would be like not to have them in my life. Thank you for sharing your memory.

Farmchick said...

Chris sounds like a wonderful person and an even better friend. I am so sorry for your loss....true friends are hard to find. May your sweet memories remind you of your wonderful times together.

Martha said...

I'm so sorry Sherry. She was lucky to have a friend like you.