Self preservation or take care of your own damn self, if you can

Harbor across from the Hilton Hotel downtown St. Augustine, this was the view from my balcony. God I will miss Susie my dear friend who died this January. We were best friends since Sophomore year in high school.

This is not what I set out to write about but what the hell, it is what my fingers are typing. When Susie moved here she was so happy. Northern Michigan was not her friend, never had been really and when the economy went to shit she and her hubs had to declare bankruptcy on their jewelry store and they moved to St. Augustine. They had jobs, a trailer, friends and a pool. They were fine.

And they loved Florida.

We saw them when we could and Susie and I  were always on the phone, except when we weren't. She could be prickly and a bitch and I do not always have the patience of Job or whoever the Bible guy is. She got breast cancer around 2013, then a year or so later it metastasized to bone cancer. She was on chemo maintenance for around 6 years. I started noticing the last year she seemed not right. I was not sure if I was correct, if maybe the pain meds were taking a toll, the chemo was taking a toll or just what the fuck was wrong. And at first it was too little to talk about and later I did not know what to say to whom. Her sister-in-law was supposed to visit in October and I thought great, someone else to check.

That visit did not happen. Family problems and shit. When I took mom home in November we stopped and had breakfast with Susie. She seemed tightly wound but okay. She was driving and making sense. Just before Christmas she started telling me she was having problems. It had been over a year since I saw my granddaughter due to all mom's problems so I was not anxious to say ya, I can do this for you. I wanted to see my family.  She started falling down and I talked to her sister-in-law when we were certain she needed medical care. I was not the person on the decision list, I was only her friend of 50 years. Then she told me she had water on the brain. Then it got crazy, because when you are talking to someone that has a messed up brain things do not come out clearly.

Our last conversation was so strange and then they loaded her into the ambulance. And then she died.

January 17,2020. Her birthday was the 15th of January and she saw nothing of her cards and heys on FB.

 It was actually brain cancer. From the breast cancer. That is how it works, the breast cancer cells seem to just roam around and find a new place to settle in some people.

I had to tell her SIL that I was not sure if they would have a easy time finding her stuff as she was really sketchy the last year and I know for a fact could not find things. I told her to put some things in the freezer and who knew if she did. I wore a ring, pink sapphires in a black setting and she just loved it, could not stop talking about it. I said  she could wear it, I never saw it again, it disappeared into the void.

Oh, I forgot to mention the year before her husband  died of lung, liver and brain cancer after a short illness. None of this was easy.

And thinking back how much of what she told me was correct, when did the brain mass really start making her reality suspect? God I miss her.

 And I am so glad she is not going through this current bullshit.