Friendship

 

Reaching for a pair of earrings in a last ditch effort to pull myself together before work, my finger fell on this ring.  I really should glue it back together.  I picked it up, remembered the day I wore it to visit her in the hospital - the day she told us it was cancer.  Sitting by her bed, my eyes teared up and I quickly hid inside myself, hoping no one could see my fears.

I catch my eyes in the mirror now:  red-rimmed, weary.  I don't know that I've worn it since that day in the hospital.  Maybe I have.  It made her smile.  It made me smile when I first saw it too.  Mailed in a package from a close friend far away - my other friend who had cancer, and lived.

Suddenly I'm taking boxes down from the closet shelf, sifting through craft supplies when I should be leaving for work.  I can't find the glue, but I recall the last time I had these boxes down and open, spread out on the table.  We made bracelets for orphans in Russia.  She - carefully rolling clay into beads like sushi, not letting me take her picture when I begged.  She was lovely even then, especially then.  Peaceful, serene, happy to be with us and happy to be creating.  I wish she'd let me capture her face, but I understand.  I won't ever forget it anyway.

I put the lid back on the box, reminding myself of where I need to be.  But for a moment, I felt glad.  Glad not to be rushing from one place to the next, even when duty said I should be.  Glad to be somewhere else completely...inside.  To be present and not the future, always going going going.

I set the box on the shelf alongside all the paper we cut, glued, and glittered into Christmas cards when we first became friends - and I miss her terribly.