Happy Birthday

.....well a few days early. I've just been thinking about it lately for whatever reason. One of my best friends would have been turning 27 on the 20th. Seems strange that three years ago around this time I was trying to figure out what to get her for her birthday. What do you get somebody that wasn't supposed to make it to see their next birthday...but they do? She had the things she needed. Family, friends, cats (oddly enough some people actually NEED cats), and a place to live. She didn't really want much or ask for much.

I got her candles. Creative I know. I don't think they were ever burned. She died in the next few months.

What I wanted to give her was relief from the excruciating pain of cancer invading every part of her body. I wanted to give her the assurance that the tumors in her lungs were going to go away eventually. I wanted to tell her that if we had enough money or time or knowledge, that she could get better. I wanted to tell her that the cut on her foot was just a cut, it would heal, it wouldn't turn into a stage III metastatic melanoma that would eventually take her life. I wanted to tell her that she didn't look like a gaunt holocaust victim laying on her deathbed.

I couldn't give that to her. I couldn't give her the only birthday gift that would have been of value to her.

Instead the last gift that she asked for from me was to organize her funeral. To give her eulogy. To dispose of her body. To sort through her earthly possessions and give them to a shelter. To love her sisters and her parents.

I wish I wasn't so limited in giving. Happy Birthday....early.