Farewell to a friend

I am not keeping up with posting very well since getting back home.  Some days I just don't know what to write about and some days I know what I want to write about but don't really know how.  This is one of those.  Today I learned from my friend Karen that our friend Rudene died in Texas on Friday.  Rudene was one of those quiet, calm people who spent more of her time listening and helping behind the scenes than seeking the limelight or trying to get attention for herself.  When I moved back to Abilene in 1981, she was my first friend as I took a social work job alongside her at the State School, where she taught me the ropes.  We have been friends ever since, even though I went on to another job and she decided to stay home and raise her family, which grew to five children, and then had other jobs herself.   We were not the kind of friends who hung out on a regular basis but we always enjoyed getting together for lunch and then later with our "girls' night out" group, which met almost religiously once a month for dinner and conversation.   Rudene was someone who never spoke ill of anyone else and even when the rest of us were complaining about one thing or another, she would just sit there and smile and offer encouragement without joining the bitching.  On the other hand, she could tell some amusing stories, usually making fun of herself. Our group of friends went through marriages, births, raising kids, graduations, weddings, worries and traumas and joys and celebrations together.  We took our babies to the zoo in their strollers and twenty-something years later, we helped at their weddings.  If she was needed for anything, Rudene was always there with a smile and a quiet confidence that everything would be all right.

When she was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of years ago, she hardly said a word about it to the rest of us.  If we asked, she always said she was "fine," "feeling okay," "doing great," even as she lost her hair and became thinner and paler.  She wouldn't miss one of those monthly dinners if she could possibly be there.   After I moved to Alaska, I had to keep track of her through other friends because she was not one to get on the internet, email or call.  I regret now that I didn't send her more little notes and cards or phone her up once in awhile just to say hi and see how she was doing.  Every trip back to Abilene, we would get our girls' group back together for dinner and I found out (not through her, of course) that she had a recurrence of her cancer.  When I saw her in May, she was wearing a wig again and looked tired and pale.  Still, she was upbeat and funny and didn't let on that anything could be wrong.  I honestly thought she was someone who could beat it and we would look back years from now and talk about how sick she'd been and how she'd come through it just fine.  Amazingly, she went to work on Thursday, then her husband took her to the hospital on Friday and she died before our friends could even get over there to see her.   That's just so Rudene.  She would never shirk any responsibility she'd taken on, even if she was at death's door.  I can't imagine being that dedicated or strong.  I'd rather lie in my bed and let everyone come over and wait on me and feel sorry for me and let me feel sorry for myself.  

When Karen and I were talking today, she said, "I just don't want to have to have a world without Rudene in it."  I feel the same way.   We didn't have to see her every day to feel her presence and her spirit and to be touched by her kindness and thoughtfulness.  I didn't even know till today that she volunteered in her church's children's ministry for 30 years.  Imagine how many children and families received the blessing of her caring heart.  She was not rich, famous, or powerful but her life had meaning and grace and she made the world a much, much better place.  I look around at our superficial society and I can easily see that this woman knew what was important.  I hope she was ready to leave this world and I hope she was at peace when she let go of this life.  I am sad that I didn't get to see her one more time and tell her how much she meant to me.  

She was young, 57.   At least that feels young to me now that I am 55.  :)   I suppose we are reaching the place where we are starting to lose people our own age, which seems so unreal.   Rich's brother George passed away a little over a month ago, and we have had some sudden deaths in Unalaska in the last few weeks.  I feel surrounded by death all of a sudden.  It is said that these experiences bring up our own mortality and make us think about how we are spending our days, how we are living our lives. And yet it is so hard to make changes and get out of our patterns, even if we know we need to do things differently.  I have never been especially good at that "live life to the fullest, as if each day is your last" kind of thing.  I'm a little bit lazy and a little bit too comfortable in my routine.  But it is certainly on my mind.