To An Old Friend

I do not usually write things so long but this is something I needed...

I look upon memories of a lady, a writer who lives in Seattle

who falls asleep no earlier than twelve am and rises no later than seven am. She drinks countless cups of black coffee throughout the day while she listens to Jim Croce and Don Mclean. She has fingernails polished to a deep crimson gloss that punch away at an old typewriter, because she hardly knows the definition of a computer. She has stacks of old books piled on her desk and enough dust covered  trinkets to fill six doll houses. I cannot help but remember her for all these things she once was when I was a lot younger and she did not seem as old. Her outbursts of laughter, her hilarious childhood stories, and her rather loud singing that was never on key. I remember when we used to drink shirley temples together at a smokey grey café downtown,  and often she would bring me strange things like mexican jumping beans from the Old Curiosity Shop on the waterfront . To this very day, I still have a little idea of what exactly these strange jumping beans are, it really is a curiosity.

The past few years she is in something of a rut . As I am not around as often to come visit she has found herself a "little someone" to hang out with. An old cat that is not much of a mouser, has an aversion to being pet and is not very amused at the idea of other living things. Daily her and "That Cat" (as she calls it) sit in her cluttered living room watching the same old news broadcasters boast about  events of horror in todays society. She will talk to That Cat about how mortified she is to hear of such tales. At this point in time That Cat will stare at her like it has no idea what she is talking about. She will pet it's matted white-ish fur and grin at it bit. That Cat will sneer at her showing the gaps where it's teeth once were, and meow the most pitiful meow you have ever heard. 

I feel like right now, at this point in life I find her face hard to describe and it feels very strange to make an attempt at even speaking of her past history or her current health status. All I know is that somehow she is here, I am here, and that means her and I are here together in this place we call life, together living, breathing, and pondering. I don't know how it came to be that we ended up so far apart and at such a loss for words to speak between each other. I must say it is impossible to completely understand how her disease has taken our lives.  Once the cancer is born it slowly begins to take a person over inch by inch. Like an oil spill in a deep ocean it's thick black sludge creeping up on you and spreading itself over your entire body before making it's way into your mind and spirit until it  finally seeps into the lives of loved ones around you. 

Sometimes, I  can feel her deep mossy  eyes smirk at me while she tells me how she feels like there's nobody left for her "I have nobody, but that damn cat" She tells me. Now when I  speak to her it as if I am not speaking to her, but as if I am speaking directly to her disease. I cannot help but want to weep at the poor decision she has made, and I cannot help but want to scream every time I utter the word ill. Although, oddly enough at some point along this path a spark of insight  splashed itself upon my face. I realized that I learned something priceless, that life is nothing but a temporary gift that can be taken away at any moment. That we simply do not know when death will strike upon us and lead us to a place unknown. So why can something so simple, so realistic, so natural knock us entirely off our feet when it has not even happened yet?