Today is a dark day for me.  One of my dearest friends, Terri, is coming home from the hospital today and is not expected to live beyond a few hours or days.  Terri is my quilting friend, she is my camping in Yosemite friend, she is my faith friend, she is my talk philosophy friend, she is my watch funny shows and drama shows on TV friend.  She has had this cancer for 12 years.  The life expectancy was ten, and only within the last few months did it ravage her body, and only within the last week did her body deteriorate completely.  It is for this reason that those of us close to her are in shock.  As recently as last week we were packed to go to Yosemite over night, it was my great desire to get her there before she died, but that morning I could see that she would not do well in altitude.  So, again, we just hung out in her living room and…well, just hung out like we always do.  With Al’s job taking him out of town over the past 3 years and her husband having left a few years back, I have been at her house almost every evening, and as Terri would explain to people who came in “this is what we do – hang out, watch TV, surf the ‘net, laugh.”

Earlier in the summer during one of those summer nights when I was quilting, for a week straight we had a heat wave, but every evening the breeze would come through the living room window to cool us off.  One night she stopped and looked at me and said “We will have to remember these summer nights.”  I will never forget her saying that, and I will always remember.

Now today I will go to that home for the express purpose of holding her hand while she leaves me.  She and I have a strong faith, and I believe I will always catch glimpses of her throughout my life.  But I will miss the day to day, the field trips to quilt shops, and Yosemite, Yosemite, Yosemite.  She wants her ashes spread there, so it will always remain even more special that it already was.  She will be at my campfire like she always was, she will stand next to me and watch the waterfalls, she will be there as I look up at the sheer cliffs and marvel at God’s real church.  When we were there in August we talked back and forth between our tents, looking up at the sky through the tent roof windows on  a Yosemite morning.

Terri loves the wind.  She told me once how, growing up on the coast, when she was at the age where death was inconceivable, she and her friends would stand on the cliffs over the ocean, leaning out as far as they would with their arms spread wide, their jackets like sails,  while the stiff ocean wind kept them from falling tumbling off the side of the cliff.

I woke up today to gusty winds coming in from the ocean, making all sorts of racket in the trees.  In a few hours I will go to the hospital to meet with hospice and prepare to bring Terri home.  I only wish this wind could keep her from falling off this cliff, just one more time.