On April 14, 1975, I made a fateful decision.
I decided to forego telling my very, very, very best friend that I was having a boob lift as an outpatient the very next day. Why? Because she had quite a yappy mouth. My boobs, after two pregnancis and a decade of wearing strechy, non-supportive bras, looked more like my grandmother’s than a woman of 28 years old. Tired of the premature sagging, I really didn’t want that broadcast to our wide group of friends.
Had I confided in her, I knew she would have insisited on accompanying me. Instead, I faked a stomach flu and asked my husband to drive me instead. She went bowling with our weekly Tuesday league and I went into surgery. Ironically, I survived the surgery – she didn’t survive the day.
And for all the days following – all the many days since we lost Andrea – I often ask myself if she would still be alive today if I had only asked her to go with me….
Dear Andrea,
On April 15, 2025 it will be fifty years since I’ve seen you.
No one knows exactly what happened. Was your radio too loud? Were your reflexes too slow? It was obvious from the TV news coverage which showed your smashed-up car that you never had much of a chance against the onrushing train when you crossed the railroad tracks.
You were a young wife. And you were a young mother. And you had your whole life ahead of you. Or so we thought.
Fifty years…your husband remarried, divorced, remarried and now has passed away – lying beside you in the cemetery. Your babies are grown…one is an attorney and one in health care services. And they now have spouses and children of their own.
You would have been such a delightful grandma.
Time has dimmed your memory and eased the pain, but I never sail nonchalantly over railroad crossings nor hear your name without a surge of longing as I recall your generous heart and your fun-loving spirit and the crazy adventures we had together with our four little boys seat-belted in the big back seat of your car.
Fifty years…I watched your parents dance together in perfect rhythm at your youngest son’s wedding many years after you left us. And, though your brother’s wife told me your mom had Alzheimer’s, I didn’t believe her. When she saw my face after all those years and I mentioned your name, her smile went all the way up to her eyes.
Time has dimmed your memory and eased the pain, but I never see good friends lunching and laughing without a twinge. And I always think of all the years of living you’ve missed when I mark the date of your accident by buying myself a single, long-stemmed red rose, placing it on my kitchen counter and noting it’s gradual loss of bloom.
And this year, five decades later, I visit your resting place beside your husband and place a stone on your monument.
And although, to me, dear Andrea, you’ll always be twenty-seven – vivacious, naive and irrepressible – with your big beautiful blue eyes and your unruly head of chestnut colored hair – it may surprise you to know your best friend is now close to 78 – and a little wiser and a tad more subdued.
I’ve learned many things in the years since I’ve lost you, Andrea, but the two things that seem to always hover close are:
Don’t tangle with trains.
And best friends are forever.
Keep Preserving Your Bloom,
PS: For those of us who will be celebrating Passover…
May this special time bring you closer together to those you love to both share stories and traditions and create cherished memories around the Seder table.