waiting

This week I wait via phone and text and airwaves with my dear friend KML, whose side. I would like to be by right now. KML and I became friends over weddings, and pregnancies, and husbands cancers. She is tall and blonde, and thin, extroverted, bright and quick witted. I seem to have a tendency toward befriending tall blonde women, me the Robin to their Batman. It was her extroversion that formed the friendship. We had mutual friends, crossing paths frequently. We both married late-ish. Her wedding scheduled a month before mine, and then mine jumped ahead two months. She called me right after iMac was born, wanted to see the baby, hear about the birth etc. I said "OK, sure, come on over."  At this point I was wondering who is this chic? I don't even know her.

I remember visiting her brand new baby A, meeting her Mom and Dad and T her best friend from her Baltimore days. We both had a history with Baltimore. Her husband's cancer came just 6 weeks after the birth of baby A. The treatment was aggressive and the recovery arduous. They returned to a sort of new normal for a few years before the radiation damage began to kick in so very hard. She was there for me through all of my depressions and I tried to be there as much as I could for her. Sometimes I was 5 miles away, 9 time zones away, 800 miles.

I spent an hour with her in a coffee shop in Annapolis 3 weeks ago. To be in her presence was to be restored. We talked of her husband's health and my husband's health. Me feeling a little guilty for the extra time MM and I are getting, as they are running out of time right now. Today she sits with husband D 800 miles from here at his hospice bedside, vent removed, feeding tube out. I am wishing and praying and crying in a way I didn't expect. Sending prayers out for KML and D tonight, and not quite believing that it is our generation's turn for loss.