We welcome this essay/short story by contributor Kathleen Canrinus on friendship and loss.
Because we spend a weekend away together every year, we fall unthinking into our familiar ways. Except for the precautions the three of us who flew from California took—isolation, then testing, and N95 masks en route—all appears normal. Just another of our reunions, the second without our dear friend Sarah, who is too forgetful now to travel.
It’s February, and we’re meeting at Jean’s home in chilly Colorado where oil and watercolor renderings of warmer places and the distant sea cover the walls. Jean can’t travel this year either and won’t again. Routines help us through the awkward first moments of this gathering that can’t be postponed until the pandemic ends. Hugs all around when we first see each other, followed by quick how-are-yous; lengthy check-ins will follow.
After sleeping arrangements are finalized and luggage is put away, we tear open three bags of chips and a king-size package of Oreos, set them on the coffee table in Jean’s cozy living room, and take our places while the temperature outside drops toward zero—four women well past a certain age, in loose clothing, without makeup.
Sue, Carol, and I sprawl on comfortable couches. Jean sits in the recliner where she spends most of her time, a view of the snow-covered Rockies out the window, her head wrapped in a paisley turban, a glass of Gator Aid and her pill bottles on a TV tray within easy reach. She smiles a here-we-are-again smile, a small sighing smile, unlike the one in her senior picture that dominates a cluster of photos on the bookshelf behind her. In the 8×10 portrait, her eyes shine as if she’s staring into the brightest of futures, her grin so wide you know she burst out laughing the instant the shutter clicked.
Our group agreed long ago that Jean is the nicest of us all and maybe the nicest person we know. Forgiving. Generous. Naturally optimistic. Thoughtful. Warm-hearted. Kind not just to people but to animals. She once adopted a squirrel left for dead by a neighbor’s cat, nursed him back to life, named him Billy, and kept him as a pet instead of handing him right over to Wildlife Rescue. “Given your upbringing, how in the world did you turn out so well?” we have asked her many times. Nothing in her background explains the kind of person she is.
There are some people I can’t forgive even though I’ve never met them. Jean’s mother is one. She divorced Jean’s aloof and distant father shortly after Jean’s birth—no blame there. But then Jean’s mother gave up custody of her infant daughter to a father unable to give her love, and never reached out to her again. As I said, I never have, but Jean has forgiven her mother and even initiated contact with her off and on throughout her adult life. Her mother never reciprocated.
“She sent me a diamond ring just before she died,” Jean says. “It arrived not long after she wrote about disinheriting me. That was a few months ago. She knew about my diagnosis. Now, what am I going to do with a diamond ring?”
Only Jean would have tried to have a relationship with a mother like that. But she has a feel for the wounded. I’m referring here not only to her mother and father, but an unloving stepmother who joined the family when Jean was three then later her two husbands. A willingness, even eagerness, to come to the rescue might even explain how she and I came to know each other. I was so desperately lonely that summer I moved to Pasadena with an infant—isolated, disconnected, without a community, friendless. One day at the market, I even approached a woman with a baby in her cart and asked for her telephone number.
Jean and I met beside the sandbox at an infant-toddler program, our nine-month-olds playing at our feet. I didn’t ask for her phone number immediately, but we talked. She listened to my story of moving away from where I had lived for most of my life. After a few weeks of friendly conversation in the play yard, she invited me to join her mothers’ group. That invitation was lifesaving. And here we are still, except for Sarah, in Colorado for the weekend.
“Tea anyone?” Jean asks. “Help yourselves.”
Because we met soon after our first children were born and not long before our second kids arrived, we’ve never stopped appreciating the luxury of uninterrupted conversation and the naughty thrill of snacking on foods we denied our kids. Talk, eat, talk, eat, walk, talk, eat. Who brought the chocolate? Where are the candied nuts? Is there another bag of chips? Are we having pizza for dinner?
We were conscientious mothers, like-minded in our thoughtful approaches but not necessarily alike. Over the years, our differences grew. First, I moved away. Then Jean moved. We no longer share political affiliations (not even close), not marital or socioeconomic status or interests other than our children and books and the occasional indulgence in junk food. But we’d shared milestones over important years of our lives, and of course, the milestones keep on coming. Turning seventy is one although Jean will be a few months shy when she leaves us.
We have seen each other through four decades of ups and downs. The births of children and grandchildren. Our parents’ ill health and deaths. A stillborn daughter. An abortion. Three divorces. A child’s serious illness. And the worst imaginable, the death of one of our children when Sue’s brilliant, handsome, charismatic, and schizophrenic son died of a drug overdose. There’s more than enough to sustain the bonds between us, but we agree that mostly, it’s our ability to listen—easily six hours at a sitting—until there’s not another word to be said. On one of our weekends away, we were still at the table, our dirty lunch dishes in front of us, when the sun set.
Not that our differences haven’t caused a few ebbs in how close we feel to each other. Jean answered a knock at the door at a personal low point after her first husband lost his job. She became a Jehovah’s Witness and remains a Witness to this day, even though the community shunned her when she left her marriage for another man. The rest of us were incensed at her commitment to teachings that caused her terrible guilt and suffering. Nonetheless, when she married that man a few years ago—after decades of living together—she requested to be reinstated. Now, the Kingdom Hall is at the center of her life. I’m not sure how she explains her three non-Witness friends. Spending time with people outside the community is discouraged.
“I did some bad things,” she says, repeating a refrain from years past. “You know what I mean.”
“Ah, still feeling guilty. What did you do that was so terrible?” I ask.
“My boys needed me, and I wasn’t there,” she says.
“Right,” I say. “Senior boys really like to hang out with their mothers.”
Everyone laughs.
“I had a freshman too,” she counters.
“Are you not allowed to do anything for yourself after eighteen years of giving?”
“I should have been there. Instead, I snuck off to be with Tom.”
“Do Witnesses believe in forgiveness?”
Jean doesn’t respond.
“There are no do-overs,” Carol says. “Forgive yourself.”
Jean is happy with the carpenter she ran away with and eventually married. Needy though he is, no one begrudges her happiness in whatever form it comes, not even the Kingdom Hall.
The conversation moves on.
“Dust to dust,” Jean says. “This is my belief now. When this life is over, it’s over.”
None of the rest of us believes in an afterlife either.
“But you know, when I was young,” Jean continues, “I believed I’d go to heaven and look down on the people I loved. I’d watch their lives unfold. The boys, the grandkids and all. Everything I’ll miss makes me sad.”
I know I should allow her to just feel her sorrow but instead rush in to say something comforting: “You’ll miss the bad things too. You’ll be present in the boys’ lives in memory. You’ll live on in them.”
She stares out the window.
“I have two more chemo treatments, and then I’ll meet with my doctor to discuss options, but there aren’t any that I know. I’ll have three months.”
“Before symptoms return?” I ask.
“No, until I die.”
I can’t think of a thing to say.
We spend too much time talking about health. I don’t mean just Jean’s; we give her all the space she chooses to take, which turns out to be very little. But accounts of the aches and pains common to women in their seventies grow tedious and pale in comparison to Jean’s prognosis.
“Have that cataract surgery,” Carol orders, when Jean mentions blurry vision. “You deserve to see well.”
“I’m not sure I want go through yet another medical procedure,” Jean says.
“Well, if not that, how about a trip to Hawaii,” Carol says.
“I can afford to go,” Jean muses.
But she probably won’t. And I sort of get it. The familiar brings comfort, and someone who’s leaving this life doesn’t suddenly become another person, a world traveler. Is a view of the Pacific necessarily an improvement over her familiar one of the Rockies?
When Jean leaves for a treatment late Friday afternoon, the rest of us pick up our phones and check in with our families then take a walk in the neighborhood. For dinner, we order two large pizzas: a meat supreme and a vegetarian. Each of us helps herself to both.
The tensest moment of the weekend comes on Saturday morning when Sue says something about the current state of our country. “The problem in the US is capitalism. Everybody is out to make a buck or rather as many bucks as possible.”
I add my two cents about how in the Netherlands, my distant cousin has access to healthcare and guaranteed housing for life. But taxes are higher.
And as on previous weekends, we’re off and running.
Carol jumps in. “It’s the billionaires. They’re the problem.”
“I think we’re doing OK,” Jean says.
Sue explodes. “No, we’re not,” she shouts at Jean. “I lost my son. The system failed him.” She stands abruptly. “I can’t talk about this anymore.”
Carol and I look at Jean and then down at our laps as Sue storms out of the room. Angry words have passed between us before, but this isn’t a weekend like any other.
“Sue did everything she could to get him help,” I remind Jean after a pause. “Everything. There was no help available.”
It’s noon when Sue rejoins the group. She apologizes to Jean and to Carol and me. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” All three of us assure her that she had every right to her reaction. She suggests we order lunch and leaves a few minutes later to pick up four bacon cheeseburgers with truffle fries all around.
We deliver Jean’s food to her chair. “I’m sorry I can’t host you properly,” she says.
“You’re not allowed to say sorry,” Carol scolds.
“Sorry,” Jean says.
Over lunch, Carol suggests we talk about good times. Camping trips with and without the kids. Birthday parties and Christmas parties. Our dinners out. Our weekends away. Quibbling over Scrabble games. Trips with our toddlers to the zoo. (We never made it beyond the flamingos and the monkeys near the entrance.) Nutcracker performances with preschoolers. The time two of our kids sent a pet hamster down a slide on a hot day. And grandchildren, grandchildren, grandchildren—six total of which two are Jean’s.
By mid-Saturday afternoon, Jean is tired, so we leave her to rest and drive into town for a look around. On the way back, we pick up fried chicken with potato salad, slaw, and biscuits for dinner. Jean turns in at 8:30 and so do the rest of us, promising to share more stories about the good times in the morning.
“I am not afraid to die,” Jean interrupts in the middle of our sharing. “I’ve made my peace with this.”
“You are courageous. You’re my role model,” Carol says.
Sue and I nod.
Believe it or not, we spend the final hours of our last weekend together looking at Jean’s teacup collection. Teacups are not my thing, but trust me, hers are extraordinary. Anyone would think so. Large, small, painted, textured, translucent, opaque. Some elaborately decorated with gold. Ten of them will go to a museum. As we pack to leave, she asks each of us to choose one. It’s a difficult decision, but I choose the Murano cup and saucer made of red glass.
How do you say a final farewell? We don’t. Are we in denial? Not really. Are we protecting ourselves from being overwhelmed by sad feelings? Probably. As we pull away from Jean’s house, I imagine my teacup on the window ledge above the kitchen sink at home where it will remind me not of loss but of one of life’s greatest gifts—friendship—and the irreversible sorrows that render it precious.
Kathleen Canrinus is the author of The Lady with the Crown: A Story of Resilience