I'm losing my longest term and best friend who isn't Steve. Her decision has been made to enter hospice care, discontinuing all her meds including ones she could be starting now for the latest medical problem. I understand her decision, not just because her much beloved husband has already become a small box of ashes, and not even because these last years of covid have isolated her even more from her large network of friends and have limited visits with family. I understand deciding not to fight any longer, and allow the inevitable in as comfortable a situation as is possible. The following is just part of how I'll always remember her.
We met way back in early 1983, soon after I met Steve, and under the same circumstances of a support group for people dealing with divorce, separation, or widowhood, called We Care. She was a group facilitator, something both Steve and I became subsequently, but I had to branch out to different locations before I landed in the one where she facilitated. We liked each other well enough, but it was probably another year before we really bonded.
That was at one of the workshops the organization held. They'd take a weekend in a different location, and there'd be maybe two a year. I was assigned to the small group she facilitated, continuity through the workshop being important for trust to develop and groups to really work. I had an issue, but it involved a whole lot of mixed negative feelings, and I'd never found a time or place to disclose what it was. In fact it wasn't till years later in actual therapy that happened. But Joan disclosed a secret of her own near the end of the group, and the fact of her doing that let me open myself up to start exploring what I needed to deal with. No, you're not getting even a hint here. I do still keep many people's secrets including some of mine.
From that point on, a friendship formed. I let her know how important what she'd said was for me, and apparently she found something to appreciate in me as well. We both served terms on the management board for the support groups, coincidentally both at different times as recording secretary. We shared a love of gardening, and she shared some of her giant raspberry plants as a starter for me to make a huge patch in my new home.
We did share one thing that threatened to destroy that friendship however. I dated Bob, another fellow board member, before she did, though she'd been interested in him for a while, something I wasn't then aware of. Eventually his interest gravitated to her, though our breakup took a few months. I'd known it was coming, but wasn't about to shove him out the door if he wasn't about to mean his "good-bye." Once our split was finally final, by his starting to date her, Bob and I were over. Period. Joan and I had a few conversations before she actually believed I wasn't needing to end our friendship over him. Once she moved from Minneapolis to Arizona to join him after a work relocation of his, deciding the distance was too great for their relationship, I happily drove the moving truck down for her, while another friend of hers shared the duties of driving her car for the trip. I'd visit them both when I came down to visit and help my snowbirding parents each year. Bob, of course, later became her husband. Their Vegas wedding was a lot of fun, and yes, I was invited. Bob and I had long since become comfortable friends.
In so many ways I've already lost her. We used to talk on the phone in calls that inevitably lasted an hour or more, despite one or the other of us saying over and over that we had to go. There was always more to say. After moving south myself with Steve, just two towns away, I got used to seeing and talking with her in person twice a month, sitting along a street corner with a group she organized, holding signs to protest for peace, most of us in chairs because of our ages and various infirmities. We'd protest for an hour and a half, then nearly all of the group would clean up and reconvene at a local restaurant for brunch and more fellowship.
Last time she became ill enough to need a daily check-in, now alone after Bob died, to be sure she could get to and answer the phone and was otherwise OK, I loved the chance to resume our old phone calls. The years fell away to our old friendship until she got sick enough to be hospitalized and her daughter traveled south to live in for a while and take care of her needs in person. We never quite picked it up again. She was needing naps every day and by this time I hated to wake her, never knowing when I might be an unwelcomed interruption to her much needed sleep. Any talks we did have were much shorter, though we did have a couple of in-person visits. Recently she became so ill she needed her daughter to come down again. In the process of dealing with everything now going on in her life, the hospice decision was made. The news comes with deep sorrow, and understanding.
I'm hoping to get a negative covid test soon so I can visit her in hospice in the time she has left. With a discontinuation of her meds, that could be short. I do so want to give her one or more last hugs, and make sure she still knows she is important to me. Her daughter could use some hugs herself as well.
Me too.
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