My friend Linda Dyer died tonight. She fought breast cancer hard for way too many years, and I think more than anyone expected. She went through jobs, health insurance, many apartments, many really crappy treatments, and a whole lot of exhaustion. And through it all, she was luminous. High-spirited. Beautiful. A real gem of a human being.
I was not on vigil with Linda in her final days. In fact, I have not seen her since she started to go downhill in the last few months. Not because I didn't want to; just that she was busy, I was busy, and we always seemed to find each other when we needed to. When I think about time spent with Linda, I think about her being a fun and caring babysitter to my son until she lacked the energy to do it anymore. I think about helping her move into her in-law apartment down the street, just as she was starting to fight her disease, none of us really knowing where it would take her.
I think of running into her at Zazie, her coming from a chemo treatment and me in my 11th week of pregnancy with Tea. She was one of the first people I told, and we had breakfast together that day, both of us eating pancakes and fighting nausea for, sadly, entirely different reasons. I think about her joining our very earnest writing group and wowing us with her effective and spare prose poems. She was a writer for the sake of writing and I always appreciated that about Linda. It doesn't always work out that way for a lot of us and she kept it real for me.
They tell me she was not in pain when she died. She was at peace. She was surrounded by many friends in real life and many, many virtual friends in spirit. Me included.
I miss you already, Lin. I knew this day would come, but that doesn't make it any easier. Peace and love.
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