Step by Step

In the beginning I never thought past Carri's next treatment or possible options. As things got worse, I never thought past dealing with the newest side effect or symptom. So, when I got the text from a friend of hers in Oregon telling me I needed to come out there from my home in South Carolina, I never looked beyond the next plane, the next layover, the baby's next feeding, finding my misplaced luggage. When her husband opened the door to the brightly colored home I had visited just eighteen months earlier I almost couldn't take that next step.
That next step would be about facing the truth...that God's answer to my pleading  prayers was "No".
The other truth, even harder to contemplate was that I was there to say goodbye.
I was led down the hall to her bedroom where I found her with the friend who had beckoned me to come softly cooing to her and rubbing her fluid-filled feet and legs.
Though her skin was yellowed with jaundice and her tiny frame looked so frail, my heart still leapt with the joy of being back in her physical presence.
I had to wait till everyone had left for the evening except the one person who would be helping her in the middle of the night should she need assistance. I had gotten the baby to sleep, at last. Carri was a little uncomfortable and was trying to distract herself by watching reruns of Desperate Housewives. She was having trouble focusing on the computer keypad and her fingers hovered over the Enter key but she just couldn't press it. I reached out and touched the button for her and as I did, she took my hand.
"I'm only on Hospice for a little while, Tanya. They don't know it but I'm getting better."
I squeezed her hand, wholeheartedly wanting to believe her and climbed up to lay next to her. Her skin was so warm. I wanted to remember that forever. Sometimes, now, months later, I can still feel her warm hand on mine.
We talked very little during my three days there. She was in and out of sleep quite a bit. I wanted to stay longer but had to return home to my other children.
On the day I left, I awoke at three am and quietly wandered through her house...trying to memorize every scent, every piece of Her that she'd put into making that place a Home. I peeked in at the boys and her husband, all huddled together in the Family bed pressed up against her hospital bed.
As I brushed my teeth, I heard moaning and shallow breathing as she made her way down the hall with her husband holding her up. She was seeing me off.
It is this memory that brings out the sobs shoved down deep in my soul. I was leaving and I didn't want to.
She was Leaving. And she didn't want to.
I hugged her as she was settled into her chair and I whispered, "I love you, sooo much. You're the best friend anyone could ever have. I'm going to miss you so much."
She whispered back that she loved me too.
As I stood in the doorway, soaking in the last image I would ever know of Beloved, she called out in a strong and clear voice for all in the room to hear..."I'll see you in a few months."
I travelled in tears that day...once again taking it step by step, plane by plane, feeding by feeding until I reached my home that night.
I crawled into bed and emailed some of the new friends back in Oregon to see how she had done that day.
At about one am EST the next night, I got the call from her Aunt telling me she was gone.
It's been five and a half months, now.
And I don't know how to take the next step or what that step should be.
For years and years, my days started with a bath tub phone call from Carri and my days usually ended with a "the kids are finally in bed" phone call to Carri. Sunrise and Sunset- How dare they go on without her?
Can I tell you about the incredible gift she arranged for me that make the unbearable a whole lot easier?
I don't know if it was a conscious effort on her part or just the sheer magic of her Spirit.
The one thing she knew about me was that I feared being abandoned. It was something we had in common and it's what drew us to each other in the beginning and kept us together through some pretty rocky patches.
I think she knew what losing her had the potential of doing to me.
So, over the last year she started talking to me more and more about certain friends of hers in Oregon that she really loved. It was neat that she loved each of them for very different aspects of their personalities and minds and beliefs. It was like each one of them embodies some likeness of her whole Personality and Being. Through her stories, I was introduced to them. Some of them I met on the trip out there during her second round of chemo. Some of them I met online while she was in Chicago, and some of them I met in person during that last visit.
I don't have a whole lot in common with most of them. To me they all seem wise and worldly and sweet and generous. Why would any of them like me? Or want to keep me in their lives? (But that's the question I used to ask myself about Carri, too. Why would someone like her love someone like me? Self-centered, not always bright, needy me? But she did.) I must have some redeeming quality or maybe this is their way of honoring her too because here I am with these new friends, each one reminding me of some part of Carri's personality, and I feel exactly the opposite of Abandoned.
That's Her Gift to me. I embrace it unabashedly.
Sometimes, the loneliness threatens to overtake me when my phone hasn't rung in a while or my inbox is full of Spam. 
Then I get a text or an email or a card in the mail and I know that it's Heaven Sent and kissed by an Angel...Carri's Angels.
I don't know what the next step is. I said I love you. I said Goodbye to her physical form.
Maybe the next step is -
Thank you

The Song My Heart Sings

My tiny little world
Encapsulated
Within
These four walls.
My World...
These three little people
Two dogs, one cat with hairballs, one man who loves me but hates his job.
My only Lifeline
To Save me from Domestic Bliss
A long, long distance phone call
To A Friend
Who has been with me since I dreamed of a family
To call my Own.
A Friend
Who watched "Beaches"
And "Got" what I "Got"
That a Friendship
Like Ours
Is the stuff
Of
Magical Movie Lore.
She has saved me
More times than can be recounted.
And I...
Want only one thing
And Nothing Else Ever...
Dear Lord,
Please
Save Her.