The light of friendship

December 7, 2010 by Beth Shepherd

The light of friendship is like the light of phosphorus, seen plainest when all around is dark.
~Robert Crowell

I was wracking my brain for something to write about when I read that Elizabeth Edwards had just died. It was only a few days ago that announcements of her “gravely ill” status began circulating in the news. I don’t know Elizabeth and I’m not writing this post to comment on her life, her marriage to John Edwards or anything else about her.

Except that she died from breast cancer. And breast cancer is what my closest friend, Dee, died from two years ago, December 20. Dee is often in my thoughts. There are many days when I ask myself, “What would Dee do?” if I find myself confronted with one of life’s challenging moments.

I’ve been thinking about Dee a lot lately. Not just because this is the month when she died, but because there have been a few dark days when I’ve really longed to talk with her. Her soul-deep knowledge of who I am gleaned from a friendship that spanned 44 years, gave me solace when nothing else could. There were so many parts of my life that I didn’t need to explain, and she had a gift for straight-forward wisdom and words of comfort when they were needed most.

I miss my friend like nobody’s business, so I curse the disease that took her from me and from her wonderful husband and family and her many friends who miss her as deeply as I do. Selfishly, I want her back, even though I know that in her 50 years on this earth, she was a shining star. No, she never made the front page of the New York Times. You won’t find her on a “Who’s who?” list, and she never acquired fame or great fortune, unless you count her friendships. In those she was rich indeed.

Today, a friend of Elizabeth Edwards was quoted as saying, “”Elizabeth did not want people to say she lost her battle with cancer. The battle was about living a good life and that she won.”

My friend Dee lived a good life hands down. She was an integral member of a loving family. Her marriage was one of the strongest I know. She wasn’t a saint but she was generous, caring and kind. Those of us who were her in her intimate circle of friends were truly blessed.

Even though I feel a profound sense of loss that she is no longer in the world, I try to do my best to honor her memory by being the best partner I can be to my husband. I truly appreciate sitting down for a delicious meal, wandering through our neighborhood farmer’s market and hunting for a good find at a yard sale. These simple pleasures brought joy and satisfaction to Dee, and to me.

And, I make an effort to keep in touch with my friends and remember the small details and important milestones in their lives. In being a good friend, I keep the essence of Dee – and my memories of our friendship – burning bright.

Forty years of friendship

December 20, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

March 20, 1969. Backs straight in our au courant “pleather” mini-jumper dresses, Dee and I sat side by side for our fourth grade class photo. On December 20, 2008, thirty-nine years and nine months to the day this picture was taken, she died. We’d been friends for nearly forty-three years, since 1966 when Dee and her family moved into the house across the street from our house in Fayetteville, New York.

When I look at this picture, I can barely remember myself as a young girl. The years have melted away. Back in the days when we wore our pleather dresses, summers were endless. Now it seems summer, much less a lifetime, passes in the blink of an eye. My father often told me that the older you get, the quicker time goes.

I don’t recall thinking much about dying when I was in fourth grade. I’m sure questions came up if I saw a dead robin in our yard, but until I was twelve I hadn’t been touched by illness and death in such a personal and profound way.

Two years after this picture was taken, when I was in sixth grade, my father had a major paralyzing stroke and my sister had her first of two cancers, a brain tumor. For me, their illnesses were the beginning of my realization that good health can be tenuous and life may be fleeting. They both lived, but while they were hospitalized, I heard many stories of those who did not.

The lump in Dee’s breast appeared shortly before her fortieth birthday. Cancer. For her it was the beginning of a difficult ten-year journey. My sister beat cancer twice so I held strong in my belief that Dee would overcome cancer too. I wanted the best for her and prayed for her health and complete recovery. Selfishly, I couldn’t imagine her not being around.

I cheered every bit of good news, every PET scan with hopeful results. For any step in a negative direction, I tried to offer words of encouragement. When she reached her seven year mark as a survivor, I was elated. A few months later, the cancer was back.

It wasn’t until the year before Dee died that I began to let it in. That Christmas she sent a package containing all the Christmas ornaments I’d given her over the years with a note, “I would like it if you would add these ornaments to your collection. They have hung on our trees for many years.” I wanted to put them back in the box and return them to her. Accepting her gift felt like an acknowledgment that time was running out for my friend.

Today is the one year anniversary of Dee’s death. I think about her all the time, sometimes with sadness that she passed too soon and at other times with gratefulness that I was able to enjoy a friendship that spanned four decades.

I take some comfort in knowing that Dee was in the arms of her husband when she died. Their marriage was the source of tremendous strength and joy for Dee. Two of her sisters were also there. She was surrounded by love and, from what they’ve told me, she wasn’t in pain.

Still, I miss her. Loss is one of life’s most difficult lessons and I struggle with accepting its presence.

I will never have another friendship quite like the friendship I had with Dee. There is no other close friendship I have as an adult, which goes back as far. Dee knew my family and she knew about their illnesses and our struggles. She knew the decades of twists and turns in my dating history that led finally to a wonderful man and a happy marriage with Big Papa. She knew that I loved a good yard sale as much as I loved a trip to the farmer’s market.

Dee knew me in such a way that I didn’t have to explain myself. And, despite much of what she knew of my failings, she was still my friend through thick and thin. Sometimes, I marvel that she stuck by me during the many years I made poor choices in partners and sought paths where I was not true to myself. She held steadfast in her support of me, her friend, believing I would find my way.

There are days when hearing her voice on the other end of the phone would mean the world to me. She always knew how to find the words to soothe, and I’d feel listened to and understood. She managed to keep in touch with her large network of family and close friends, and was the glue between us, keeping us updated on each other’s lives. She remembered our birthdays and anniversaries, and she had the uncanny ability to pick out just the right gift.

In this season of giving, I warmly remember our friendship. There is no finer gift than the heart of a loved one or the hand of a friend.

May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home
And may the hand of a friend always be near.

~Irish blessing

In loving memory of my friend, Dee Wood Schaubroeck. October 5, 1958-December 20, 2008.

Here comes the sun

July 16, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

As a child, we often grew a row of sunflowers across our front lawn during the summer. They stood proudly, happy yellow faces full of cheer and life. Our yard was filled with flowers. The sweet smell of Lily-of-the-Valley wafted through my window each spring, followed by luscious, prolific lilac bushes and sensuous climbing roses that crept up the trellis on the side of our house.

I love flowers, all kinds of flowers, but these fifty years later I’m hard-pressed to find a flower that puts a smile on my face quite like a sunflower.

Directly across the busy road from our house, was the Wood’s house, where my friend Dee lived. I know that when the Wood kids came out their front door and walked down their steps, our sunflowers were waving across the street.

Over the years, both Dee and I moved on to different states, me to California and then Washington, and Dee to Vermont, Maine, Minnesota and finally Massachusetts. This past decade, as she battled breast cancer, I occasionally sent her sunflowers to celebrate a birthday or brighten her day. Toward the end of her illness, I know she enjoyed sitting in the sunroom at the back of her home, a lovely space lined with windows and painted a delicious shade of sunflower yellow. I would imagine those flowers sitting beside her as she read a book and it warmed my heart. I couldn’t be there, but I felt as if I was watching over her shoulder.

For Dee’s 50th birthday, last October, I sent sunflowers and by some miraculous slip, the florist delivered two bundles. Dee called us, concerned that we’d been double-billed. We hadn’t been but even if we had, I was thrilled to know two bunches of yellow blooms were sharing her day.

Dee died shortly before Christmas. I traveled to Maine to attend her memorial. It was a sobering trip with heavy gray skies on both ends of the journey. Her husband and family chose to have her ashes rest at three meaningful sites, a beach on the coast of Maine where Dee’s brother Mark’s ashes were also scattered, a lake in Minnesota by the college Dee’s husband, Gaylen, attended and where he asked for her hand in marriage, and a family plot near Syracuse, New York where Dee grew up.

Today is the day Dee’s remaining ashes are being interred in upstate New York. I wasn’t able to make the trip but tomorrow, a bouquet of sunflowers will arrive at her parents’ home.

In Seattle, the sky is as blue as the ocean in York, Maine on a sunny afternoon some twenty-one years ago to the day, when she and Gaylen said their vows. The sun shines brightly and warms my shoulders, as I sit on the back deck of the Urban Cabin, writing these words and remembering my friend. In a vase, just beside me, are sunflowers.

Friends for life

June 1, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

Some of my earliest memories revolve around my friend Dee. I was six years old, living in a small town in upstate New York, when her family moved in across the street. My sister and I watched as they carried bed after bed across the lawn into their house. We were a family of four and they were family of 13, so we stared in amazement.

As young children, we were good friends. I remember building snow forts in the winter and riding bikes around the neighborhood in the summer. We played dress-up and went to each other’s birthday parties.

Dee and I were close for 44 years. We drifted apart for a time during high school, though we did have overlapping circles of friends. My senior year at Cornell University, after I returned from a semester studying in Amsterdam, we rented a house together. Our friendship as adults stood solidly from that point on.

My favorite memories are of meals we cooked together with ingredients from our local farmer’s market. Recipes from the Moosewood Cookbook, like Mushroom and Barley Soup. To this day, enjoying good food and making a meal to share, is a way I connect best with those I care about and an expression of love. Dee and I would sit at the table at our rented house on College Avenue and talk for hours. I learned so much from her and, over the years, could always count on her sage and to-the-point wisdom.

After college, I moved first to California and then Washington State. Dee moved to Vermont, then Maine, followed by Minnesota when she got married, and finally to Massachusetts. We kept in touch through letters and occasional phone calls. It was comforting to have a friend who understood me and knew my family history. Hearing her voice always centered and soothed me. She reminded me of what was truly important in life. Dedication to those you care about, deep friendships, and being true to oneself.

This weekend, Dee’s friend Kate was in town for work and we had an opportunity to catch up. Dee and Kate met in college. In fact, it was during my stint overseas that Dee transferred to Cornell and sublet my apartment. I spent time with Kate too, but she was Dee’s friend. Over the past thirty years, Dee helped us keep tabs on each other. She was the glue between her friends. She remembered the details in our lives and stayed connected with us, no matter the miles or years that came between us.

I really enjoyed the time spent with Kate, kindred spirits and a shared friendship with Dee. We might not have reconnected in this way, if not for the December memorial in York, Maine. Dee died a few days before Christmas after a decade-long struggle with breast cancer. Kate and I were both at the service, the first time in 27 years we’d seen each other in person.

I feel so blessed to have known Dee. Her friendship was one of the greatest gifts of my life. I am, without a doubt, a better person for having known her. I feel a profound sense of loss that she is no longer in the world.

So it was a great honor, though bittersweet, to have Kate here in Washington. She was able to meet Big Papa and visit the Urban Cabin. We gathered the makings for dinner at our neighborhood farmer’s market and enjoyed a good meal and even better conversation, on our deck. We laughed. We cried. We reminisced. Together, we shared the simplest pleasures in life, which was the essence of our friendship with Dee, and the memories we will always keep close to our hearts.