Honor

My friend Nick just died, a year after he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.  Bonnie, his wife of 35 years, took care of him through the months of treatment and gradual decline.

Our tribe of friends and family did what we could–visits, food, a few simple errands and, mostly, just being there.

You reach a certain age and the people with whom you’ve shared big chunks of your life start to die. It pretty much stinks. No flowery lessons or epiphanies to offer here, except this: it is truly an honor to be allowed to just be there for a friend who is dying or a friend who is tending to a dying loved one.

There are people who can’t understand how anyone could work for hospice. Too depressing, they say. I don’t know. I watched our friend Kathleen, a hospice nurse, be there for Nick and Bonnie.  Another honor to see her calm competence make the situation as good as it could be.

This death, like those of others I’ve cared about and loved, makes me think how precious it is–what an honor it is–to call someone friend.

If you’ve lost someone close, you know about, what I call, “the bubble.” You enter a kind of nether-zone for a while. Time warps a bit. Thanks for stepping into the bubble for a moment…and being there with me.