For Emily

Today is the one year anniversary of my wonderful friend Emily’s passing to breast cancer. It hurts still to think about her, and the wonderful husband and children that were left behind. She wanted to make it to her 30th birthday last year in June, and she did, and it meant so much for us girls to celebrate it with her. She always talked about making it, and none of us would even fathom that she wouldn’t. But she was prepared, making cards for the kids to open on their birthdays, and Christmas, and when they grew up and started families of their own, and giving us our private assignments to carry out for her. We are the Ya-Yas, a group stronger because of what she was going through, and what we were going through together, forever bonded by the bitch sessions about our lives, our crazy parents and our families, and how they made us who we are. Our anger at her sometimes because we couldn’t tell her how we really felt, because we didn’t want her to remember us that way. My 2 a.m. ramblings because she was the only person I knew who was not only awake, but had her own to share. Our relationship with our friends have different levels, some things you can only share with certain ones, because you know they will keep the secret to the grave, and would never question or judge your feelings. Others, you hold at arm’s length, because they would never understand, or would see you differently. She and I could yap about the mundane, and all of a sudden talk about who was going to get her vast stamping collection after she was gone. So many promises to keep, and yet, I’m a failure because so many I couldn’t, because I was scared and didn’t know how to do them. Aren’t you supposed to fulfill the wishes of the dying? I’m the weak one of the group, we have the strong ones who selflessly make up for my short-comings, and to them I am grateful. Because that what friends do, and they will never know how much I look up to them, because in them I see her.

Ok, Emily is totally laughing at me now, saying “What the hell is that, man?? Seriously…”

Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk – Susan G. Komen Foundation