She knew she was dying, and she was scared.

A terminal illness was destroying her from the inside out; her muscles, speech and breathing all waning. Everything except her mind. In that imprisoned space, she was still bright, beautiful and alive.

We had known one another as kids, but had traveled our separate ways from high school, both of us grateful to be free from the weight of small-town reputation and adolescent judgment. Over the years, as I thought of childhood faces and names, she would come to mind; her kind eyes and easy smile lingered.

More than 25 years after graduation, we reconnected via social media and exchanged notes, updating one another on life as we knew it. The notes turned into visits filled with laughter and tears, and sometimes a little wine.

Dumbfounded, I listened as she told me how close friends had disappeared after learning of the ALS diagnosis. She was dying and her heart was broken in ways I couldn’t fathom. It made me love her more.

After she could no longer speak, she communicated via technology-infused glasses that she’d aim at a special laptop. Using her barely functioning right hand, she would click the highlighted letters and words, painstakingly creating precious sentences. It took her a long time to create a paragraph; the process was heartrending to witness.

But the notes she would send me, even in her last few months, were often funny and spicy, making me laugh out loud.

So I dreamed about u girl! We were late for a meeting because u wanted to stop at target to buy halloween decorations! CRAZY BITCH.

The day before she passed, her husband graciously invited me to say goodbye. Trying to keep myself stoic, I quietly greeted the aide at the door and met my friend’s husband and daughter in their kitchen. They wore the vacant stare of war veterans; emotionless, hollow. How do you prepare for the inevitable end? They were figuring it out moment by moment.

I presented my gift of flowers and cookies, both of which were acknowledged softly and set aside. Were they even appropriate? I had no idea what to bring to honor death. I felt inept, out of place, and suddenly overwhelmed.

“You can go in,” her husband said to me, nodding gently to the bedroom door across from us. At that moment, a flash of fear moved through me. I knew my friend, the girl in my heart, would not be there when I opened that door. I steadied myself and followed his direction.

As I walked into the space, I closed the door behind me. The moment felt holy and I paused to absorb it.

She was in a first-floor suite her husband had created after the diagnosis. The bedroom had been painted a soft purple with white trim, and decorated beautifully with her favorite things.

There on the walls were her beloved “I Love Lucy” images. Her perfumes and trinkets situated on shelves at the foot of her bed. Portraits of her smiling children surrounded her on all sides, and a television, perched on shelving to her left, was playing her favorite show, The Golden Girls.

She was lying on her back with her head slightly elevated by a pillow, her short hair pushed back from her face. Her breathing slow and labored.

I sat in the chair next to her bed and whispered, “Hey, Kris. It’s Dy.” I wanted to believe she knew, somehow, I was there.

For what felt like a long time, I spoke in rambling sentences as tears poured out of me. I prayed for her to be delivered into light and peace, and asked for love to flow to her children, husband and family.

All the while, the surreal antics of Bea Arthur, ‎Rue McClanahan, Betty White, and Estelle Getty unfolded in the background, the television show theme song serenading us at the start and close of each episode…over and over…

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true you’re a pal and a confidant
And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say
thank you for being a friend

Four years earlier, nearly to the day, I had watched my father die after a lifetime of struggle. I remember asking myself and God, what had it all been for. What had been the point of all the pain and suffering?

I found myself asking the same questions there, at my friend’s bedside.

But there were no answers.

I’ve come to understand some questions are pointless to ask and to stay in them too long inspires cynicism, or worse. Instead, we each must draw our own conclusions. Are they right or wrong? Who in this lifetime can say?

As I remember the moments with my refound friend, I know this with certainty: I am grateful. Our conversations were among the most genuine and honest I’ve ever had. Through her, I experienced the beautiful understanding that comes when you truly face death: You literally have nothing to lose.

And maybe that’s the point for us all – to truly acknowledge the inevitable and allow it to inform our lives in a way only the dying fully know.

Thank you, my friend.

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