Friendship

I celebrated birthday party #5 today with my camera-shy friend at Anthony’s in Anacortes. We have been friends since I was 18 years old—a long, long, long time ago.

We yakked for hours. She gave me chocolate. This is what life is all about, people. The friendship, not the chocolate. 

She’s that rare friend that when you call her to tell her you have cancer, she just jumps right in and starts driving you places: infusion center, the surgical oncologist, and the regular oncologist. At the hospital—where you end up for one of your nine echocardiograms—she sits next to the examining table, entranced while the nurse is examining your insides up on the computer screen.

After these exhausting appointments (where you hear bad news more than once), she brings you to Trader Joe’s for dark-chocolate covered caramels to cheer you up, followed by a trip to the gourmet culinary store so you can pretend you are not dying of cancer and will someday use the endless appetizer plates you can’t stop buying for your future, out-of-reach kitchen remodel.

I told her today that she is not getting rid of me. We are friends for life.

I see from this picture that my hair is partly grey and partly blonde (because I’m trying to grow it out, remember? Gonna take a year according to the hairdresser…) and I still don’t care that it looks like crap because I made it to another birthday.