Good-Byes

When god closes a door,

She opens a window…

My friend is moving. I figured I could bypass the grief of her moving by not visiting her shell of a house one last time. She and her husband have moved much of their belongings already to the other half of the house where her daughter moved with her husband and two children. My husband says, “Be happy for her.” 

And I am. I try not to cry over her loss. No more three hour visits that pass like 5 minutes sitting happily down by the creek or nestled next to the fire.  When Raymond left he said, “Come back, You need closure.” 

So I did, one more time. And I will see my friend too, one more time in the home she has always been in, close to me. The next time will be in a new state, 5 hours away.  So visits which weren’t that often anyway, maybe every 3 months or so, yet still precious to me, will become yearly. Who knows, maybe more. 

God opens windows if one notices. My friend Sue, died two years ago. She was only 67 and these days that’s not old. Nancy came into my path during that time. A sister-in-law who lived in California moved close and we connected after all these years too. So yes, I’m grateful, and happy. I do notice that after the death of my dearest friend, god, the universe, opened her windows and gave me more gifts. And Nancy has not died, she can be with her daughter and family, enjoying those grand-children every single day. Yet the tears I’ve been holding finally fall.

She gave me a very old frame while cleaning out her house. I will make her a mosaic for the next time we visit in the new home. And during all those hours making the piece, I will feel her close-by, with me.

I don’t have a lot of friends, but one of the closest, Mary, told me once, “All’s you need is one.” So when I’m down and thinking about those who just seem to draw others to them, I remember, ‘All’s you need is one.’ 

I want to add, the loss of Sue and Nancy move me so because they are the only two women friends I became intimate with that also suffered sexual abuse as children. Yet they worked as I did to raise functional families. So they know, really know, how hard that is, and what a toll childhood sexual abuse takes on one’s entire being. The loss is substantial. Yet because of them, I know how it feels to truly love.  

I ask why? Why have both women come into my life only in the last five years or so? Why so late in my life, and why such brief friendships, then taken away? And I say say, “Thank you.” Thank you for the gift of knowing them and feeling what love and being loved feels like.