It has been difficult for me to get back to Favorite Philosopher.  Al and I completed our move to Laguna Hills, CA on Sunday March 11.  There is plenty of debris rolling around in my brain to write about, but I have been avoiding writing because of the first thing that must be written down before I can move on.

My dear friend Terri is gone.  I am fine, going about the endless business of a major move, until I have to speak those words, write those words, accept those words.  It is incomprehensible to me.  She had cancer for so long, and for so long it was a non-issue, asymptomatic, held at bay, not real.  Then, in the blink of an eye, it was a big issue, very aggressive, unable to be contained, all too real.  And now she is gone, in a matter of a few months.

I left Lafayette and it is probably just as well.  Her mother, Marge, who has lived there for 12 or so years, will be moving out of the home she and Terri rented.  Marge was my buddy, too.  I took her to doctor’s appointments, Christmas shopping, errands now and again.  She will move to Sacramento and I fear I will never see her again.  We (Terri, her kids, my kids…) all called her “Speedy” because she walked so slowly with her walker, to her resigned delight.  She went to Mass every single morning and will be leaving her support community as well.  I worry about her.  She will be 90 years old on this Saturday, St. Patrick’s Day (an Irish girl from the get-go!)

Within a month from today the house will be empty of all the life that existed there over the years – the casual barbecues, the Halloween gatherings, the quilting marathons, the teenagers roaming in and out over the years, Speedy clunking down the hall at every commercial break like her therapist instructed.  The next time I return, there will be no “there” on Sweetbriar Circle.  Someone else will live there.  It will all be like a dream.  It is surreal, the fleeting nature of life, how quickly we can be erased from a particular scene.  Like my next door neighbor, whose lifetime of belongings I watched be dumped into a dumpster over a period of weeks – we are forgotten it seems simply by tossing the stuff of our lives.

Of course, we are not forgotten.  We are eternal in God’s universe, only having occupied this human form for a short time until we are set free again.  When I was leaving the hospital after feeling the life leave Terri’s body under my hands, a woman was being guided into a wheelchair, ready to be wheeled to the maternity floor where a new life would enter this world, its very first inhale sharing in Terri’s final exhale.

It’s just too big to figure.  I will write more presently, but will take a few minutes, as I always do after writing the words “Terri is gone,” to cry my tears of disbelief and grief.  I will always remember this dear woman with whom I shared so much of myself and whose presence allowed me to achieve so much of the potential of Mary Horton Sondag.  I hope that I can honor our friendship and love by not ever forgetting who I was in her presence – good humored, creative, open and sacred.  I wish I could have always had that help to be the best I can be in this life, but hopefully my belief in angels will be confirmed in the days to come.

She wrote these words to her children in her last hours and whispered them to me: “Always talk to me, I will be there.”   Please excuse me while I do just that, in hopes that my deep sorrow will be transformed into joyful action.