No Sputter Zone

by

Patti Dickinson

Friendship among fifty-somethings.....they take work to keep them from sputtering.

As many of you know, I lost a friend to lung cancer January 4 of this year. For about eight weeks, three of us came and went from hospice and shared some incredibly intimate moments with Janice, her spouse, her kids, Renee, her long ago college roommate and each other. This went way beyond the kind of conversation you would have at a chance meeting in the produce aisle at the grocery store. We were part of the journey of Janice leaving this life...and all the emotions that go along with that.

And gentle Sara....she made it her mission to make sure that we didn't lose touch....we who had shared some terribly difficult moments together at Janice's bedside. Many emails have bounced around cyberspace, trying, since January to find a date/time that we could meet for dinner. We finally accomplished that. Busy schedules...one of us, Carol, is a doctor. Her schedule can be unpredictable.

We met last night at Cactus Grill, over espinaca dip and two baskets of chips. We fast-forwarded each other through our lives over the past six months. Hit the highpoints, laughed at Carol's duck story (driving to work down Rainbow at seven a.m. on a Sunday morning, and there is a duck, with eight or ten ducklings trying to get across the street. Somehow one of the little ducks got caught in the storm sewer, she called the police, they "don't handle ducks" and Doctor Stanford, on all fours, yanks this little duck out of the drain and shoos all the ducks out of the street with no help from the police!!!). All this, before doing rounds at the hospital. We talked of the upcoming release of a book I co-wrote, Four Ordinary Women. The how/when/where/why. The whole spectrum, from rejection letters to book signings.

And isn't life funny? Three women who had three sons who were elementary school classmates. Their moms drawn together by school carnivals, Boy Scout campouts, spelling bees and first dates. And they lose a friend to cancer. Honored to have shared the escorting-out part of our friend's life.

Thanks, Sara for making last night happen. The power of women's friendships is underestimated. They feed the soul, elicit laughs that make our faces hurt and connect us not only to each other but to understanding more about ourselves.