For Joan

Last Monday the ambulance came for the last time and took my friend Joan away. You are never ready for that news. On Friday we went to the memorial service at her church. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot my mind was full of memories. Over there, at the school, Joan and I had a fun night of bingo a year or so ago. We were hoping to win a Vera Bradley bag. We didn't win but we enjoyed being together that night. As soon as we entered the church I remembered other services here, baby baptisms-- joyous occasions. And the last time we came here Joan and her husband had invited us to an Irish concert. Good times. Today her casket is before us and her broken family is receiving the mourners.

Joan and I were the same age, only weeks apart. There is something special about having a friend exactly your same age. We grew up together, states apart not knowing each other then, but still we had many of the same experiences. We remembered the same songs and laughed about the craziness of that era. I met Joan before Fred and I were married. We found out we lived in the same neighborhood at one time, but never met each other then. Joan was a member of a walking club and that's what she liked to do. So I walked with her many places. We would walk with baby Arielle in her stroller, and later Liana was in the stroller and Arielle walking beside us as the years went by. The girls loved Joan. She was an aunt to them, even though she had many nieces and nephews of her own.

Joan and I took a quilting class together, and, except for color, made identical quilts. We both loved chai tea lattes and we would catch up on life while sipping our teas. Joan was a devout Catholic, but our differences never came between us. She was interested in my church as I was in hers. We talked about what we had in common instead--our faith. Joan was always looking for ways to help others. Her willingness to serve others, even strangers, was evident early on. When we took walks through the neighborhood in the morning, she would right the fallen trash cans, picking them up from the street where they had been tossed and returning them to the houses where they belonged. Oddly, that memory comes back to me. I've written before how she cared for my girls in October when Fred had surgery, arriving about six in the morning and staying until dark. Arielle was gone part of that day, so Liana has special memories of playing board games and watching Old Yeller with Joan, just the two of them.

The last thing we did together was take a class at my church: When Life is Hard. Life became very hard for Joan when she was diagnosed with cancer. She was sad and frightened. Oh, how she wanted to live! Dying is so very hard. She was honest about her thoughts and emotions and I learned so much from her. I've also written before about the turn of events that brought her to this class, and I realize now that God was drawing close to her before her time on this earth ended.

In church yesterday we heard this beautiful song. This is for you, Joan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOzYcXaZY8k

"Sometimes the way is lonely and steep and filled with pain. So if your sky is dark and pours the rain, then cry to Jesus, cry to Jesus, cry to Jesus and live!

...And with your final heartbeat, kiss the world goodbye. Then go in peace, and laugh on glory's side, and fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus and live!"