Two days ago would have been a friend’s 43rd birthday and last September would have marked 19 years of friendship. Sadly my friend Connie passed away two years ago.
I always remembered her birthday because it is on the 8th of December, the Holy Day of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (10 years of Catholic education sticks with you). We always had a chuckle at such a coincidence because believe me we were not saints! Connie was the kind of friend who loved life and laughter, she always lived full of zest and joie de vie, I guess that is why it is so hard to accept that so many of her last years shared by an entity that slowly stole her life. My dear friend Connie struggled with Hodgkin’s Disease for many years before it took her last breathe.
I could always count on her to listen and make me feel that I could call on some secret confidence. For years I watched her pull courage out of her sleeve on numerous occasions - she was one of the most self-assured people I have ever met. She never claimed to have all the answers, but she was determined to grapple with the questions until a solution materialized. When we were in our teens her passion was to be a great mother, and was not afraid to let people know even though we grew up in an environment that told us girls that we could do and be anything. She somehow knew that she was signing up for the toughest job on earth, and made no apologies when people tried to get her aspire to loftier pursuits. Connie did go on to get a degree and work with mentally handicapped adults, but that were just what she did not who she was. She loved her children with all her heart and excelled as a matriarch. Connie also valiantly faced teenage pregnancy and adoption in high school, a painful annulment and single-parenting before she began her fight against cancer.
Most of all I miss her laugh. Connie was filled with so much of it and our friend Jennifer and I loved to coax it out of her. We were known to spontaneously combust with giddiness as we constantly found ways to entertain ourselves and others. Mostly we were just three silly girls, who used our laughter to carry us through the pain and hardships of teenage misery and young adulthood. Even latter in life when you found two or three of us together there was always laughter as we remembered the great mouse burger caper, being locked in the choir closet and late night excursions after pizza night. We always talked about the serious things of life too, but all too often the eyes of children and spouses rolled as they tried to decipher a story between the peals of chuckles and tears. It kept the little women in us alive and allowed us to touch something innocent within our hearts as we faced a world that was not always kind to dreamers.
For the past two days, I have been thinking about my friend and missing her voice and smile. I was fortunate enough to speak with her about a week before she died and I can remember the conversation like it was yesterday. Her breathing was laboured but she wanted to talk and share what had conspired in our lives in the months since we seen each other last. We shared life our while expressing gratitude and love. She sounded so strong at the time recently returning home with a good prognosis; I never thought that I would not see her again.
I guess I am missing her for selfish reasons as I am in transition and she was one of those people you could just laugh with about your predicament. Today I caught myself laughing out loud as I recalled some of our stunts, right in the middle of considering some proposals for my future. I must have needed to take the edge of the stress, and like a true friend she was there in my heart, helping me to laugh at my fate and reminding me to enjoy where I am at this moment.
I miss you girlfriend.
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