Goodbye Oklahoma Girl

I have been dreading this day I knew was coming.  The day I opened my messages and saw one that started with “Hello, this is” because I knew the words that were going to immediately follow.  My friend had died and her husband was letting me know.  Four years ago she had been feeling tired a lot.  She was always so busy.  Four daughters and finally a son, she was busy for good reason.  But she was so busy, even though she had good insurance, she was too busy to go to the doctor.  It is easy to rationalize and explain away this behavior.  We all think we are young until we are not.

Twenty years ago I was in a friend group that met every Wednesday at one of our houses for potluck lunch and to let our kids play.  One day we had some new faces!  People who had just moved into town, down the block from one of the members.  Eventually she was a regular, always bringing the exact same thing to lunch.  Every single week I loved it.  Every week she wasn’t there I missed it.  Homemade chocolate cake.  Often still warm, seldom frosted, it was amazing!  I had been making box mix chocolate cakes for so long I had forgotten how good, and how little extra work a scratch made chocolate cake is.  Eventually she taught me her recipe and a couple of tricks she had devised.  Now every time someone complements my cake I think of her.

She was goofy, and funny, and it was sad that some people, even the woman I was married to ...a lower-third high school graduate, looked down on her and thought her dumb.  Far from it.  She had a degree in chemical engineering but was never able to work in her field.  Too much sexism in the old boys club.

My friend spent a couple of years during that lunch club time telling me that I reminded her of someone famous but she couldn’t remember who.  Finally one day she told me she had remembered.   It was Snoop Dogg.  Now maybe you can’t tell from my profile picture, but I am about as white of a white guy as they come. Since then I have always hung a picture of Snoop where I work.  Every time I think of it I can’t help but smile.  Every time I have told the story it sticks with people.  I have laughed about it so often when people bring it up.  I always strike a pose and say the same thing, “It’s uncanny, isn’t it?”

Married to a computer chip designer, body builder and kickboxer.   One of those who, even though I am no authority, I had to admit was a really good looking guy.  I said to the group one time “she likes those lumpy guys” and of course the name stuck.  We called him Lumpy.  He had a full batman suit and had the look and personality (and silence) to pull it off perfectly.  She would be in the center of the room talking and laughing, always surrounded by a group while he, seeming seven feet tall in bat ears could stand next to a wall motionless, both of them in their element.

We did everything as a group.  Parties, dining out, several years even all going camping together.  One night we had a talent show.  I played guitar because I had started a couple of years earlier.  One woman tied a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue.  So talent was very open to interpretation and we had fun.  My friend’s husband wrote haikus poking fun of each of us.   He was guy who only said a couple dozen words a year in the group, but his haiku were brilliant!  It was all harmless but my wife, who ran a little business buying garage sale kids clothing and selling them on Ebay, was incredibly fragile.  She didn’t make much but I was just happy she was doing something other than sitting around complaining.  His haiku for her made fun of this, ending in a line “look, four bucks” and she never sold another item again.  When I was forced out of the house I had paid for, there were still lawn & leaf bags of children’s clothing in the attic.  Her husband and I have something in common now.  Both losing the person dearest to us.  His more sad, my loss more cruel. 

I had heard via town gossip she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.  At that point I hadn’t talked to her for a few years.  The lunch club had petered out when a couple of the main families had followed jobs and moved out of town.  I would see her from time to time at a distance, as you can’t help when you live in a small town.  Then one day as I was leaving the local grocery she was walking in.  I was alone by then, living a couple of blocks away.  I told her what my life had become.  We exchanged numbers and I would hear from her occasionally, but we grew closer the past couple of years.  She loved lost people.  That nurturing spirit and southern warmth kicked in.  At the time I was pretty lost.  I heard from her often until eventually, as she got sicker, our roles reversed.

I loved that she would often do unexpected things.  A strict conservative who at one point whipped open her shirt to show me her scars.  It allowed me the unique human experience of being both shocked and amused.  We talked often, about a year ago, of getting high together.  She was grasping at straws to stay alive and thought maybe pot could help, either medicinally, or increased appetite.  I had my own selfish reasons.  I just *knew* I would come away from that whole deal with stories I would laugh about for years.  But we never got around to it.  Even in sickness she was busy being a mom.

What really locked in our friendship was one morning I was walking back to my dingy little apartment from the coffeehouse and her big van pulled up beside me.  She hailed and asked if I had ever been to some store in a neighboring town.  I hadn’t.  A few minutes later I was texting in to work sick (sorry boss) and riding shotgun in a sixteen passenger van with the window rolled down.  It turned into an all day adventure as she took me to the weirdest collection of stores, none of which I had ever been in.

She loved my chicken curry (recipe to be found earlier in this blog) and every once in a while I would make it for her.  She told me she hid it from her family so she could eat it all herself.  She was my biggest fan and loved hearing stories of my current life and my travels.  Though in truth it was reading my texts and blog not actually hearing.  I used to laugh after getting together.  She would ask me so many questions, then without a pause, immediately launched into some story.  It was only very rare times I got time to speak.   

Via text we talked multiple times a day.  The only exception just in the past few months.  Whenever I told her I had arrived in town and would love to hang out, she would disappear.  I would keep writing her but never hear back until I told her about someplace new I currently was.  Then she would pop back up, always with an excuse and an apology for being busy during during my visit.  Our conversations would pick up right where we left off.  It took me a while to figure it out she didn’t want to be seen.

When I left on my current trip it was with one sense of dread.  I was very, very afraid she wouldn’t live until my return.  A week in I was proven right.  I am half a world away and I won’t even be there for her funeral.  She had dodged me seeing her again.