Best friends, separated

(Not a perfect clarity, but the best I can figure out on my lonesome with the scanner.)
  I was just tired enough with the time shift to go to bed last night, rest but not fall asleep, get up for an hour, and now feel crummy this morning.

I got up and wrote because I couldn't sleep for the story, so might as well get it down.  (My body says stick to reading next time.) This is not that story, because that is for something else, but this is another part of it. This is Barbara.  And me. 1994, the only time we went to the mall together, and we weren't shopping, we were having a picture for memory before time was gone.

I realize that this is about the point in that year when cancer went from a battle to be won to the means for calling her home.  It's funny how anniversary points can come and go and not be noticed most years, but clobber you on others. The dress in this picture I had made for her birthday, because she didn't have anything comfortable to wear after her surgery.  Even weeks later anything across her waist hurt, so I made her a dress--she picked out the fabric and pattern--with a raised waistline and double-breasted bodice.  As she lost weight, she took in the sides, but this was her go-to dress till she was too ill to leave her home.  She was put on home hospice care and the Relief Society sisters divvied up the hours that someone had to be with her and there was no other coverage.

We had gone to the temple together for thirteen years.  Our friendship grew out of an initial offering of support in a very difficult time, but soon we became indispensable to each other.  At least she was indispensable to me. There were reasons why no one could fully understand our circumstances and struggles except each other.

This started out as just find her picture, and tell the story of the temple bag. I guess I should do that now.  She had a little suitcase, nothing special, she got it at Goodwill.  I had a bag with a zipper that was broken, it wouldn't work all the way around, making it a little awkward.  We had had various bags over thirteen years to carry our white temple clothes to and from.  The last use for hers was to use the contents to dress her body for burial.

I asked her oldest daughter afterwards if I could keep and use the bag.  It felt like taking a little bit of her back with me.  I got the hang of the cranky latch, and I continued to use it.  On a bad day, though, it was heavy on my injuries after the last accident, and I decided that the time had come to have something lighter.  I was ready to let it go, and my oldest daughter gave me a cloth messenger bag with a shoulder strap for Christmas a year ago.  Barbara's bag is tucked away.

Kids today toss around the term, "BFF," "best friends forever."  They don't yet know what it means to have a best friend truly for forever, for eternity, but I hope they do someday.  Separation does not diminish the love we have for each other, it just keeps us in different places for awhile.  Not forever; never forgotten.  The glad reunion will come.  Truly, for all those who are dear to us, it will come.

 

     Traveler

I carried this little bag with you

On so many trips together,

Anchoring our lives, cementing our love;

Temple companions, eternal friends.

I carried this little bag home,

Empty

From the mortuary,

Its contents used to dress your body.

A last service to give,

A gentle goodbye.

I carry this little bag with me,

A bittersweet well of emotions

As first I place my whites within

Where yours were taken out.

I keep this little bag with me.

Its latch is touchy, its sides are old,

But its company is tender.

When it can no longer journey,

I will remove temple clothes

To tuck it away somewhere

Filled with memory.

         --(c)Marian J. Stoddard