Dear Andrea,
On April 15, 2023, it will be forty-eight years since I’ve seen you. That last fateful morning, you went bowling with our weekly league; I went into surgery. Ironically, I survived the surgery – you didn’t survive the day.
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 train.
You were a young wife. And you were a young mother. And you had your whole life ahead of you. Or so we thought.
Forty-eight years…your husband remarried, divorced, remarried and now passed away – lying beside you in the cemetery. Your babies are grown…one is an attornty and one a city councilman. And they now have 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.
Forty-eight 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 your birthday by buying myself a single, long-stemmed red rose.
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 76 – 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,
Iris Ruth Pastor