Jeri called me last night. She and I have been buds since the first day we met back in 1980. I had just been hired as Shipping Supervisor for Millett Sights and she was QC Manager on the factory floor. A single mom raising a daughter against all the odds we became instant friends and have kept in touch all these years.

My bud is dying due to her long-term addiction to smoking. I remember so many times pleading with her to quit, but she said smoking made her feel better. Now, she says she wished she had listened. What she has is inoperable,and terminal. They did one surgery on her and she died on the table, they brought her back and now she has to live with oxygen 24-7 because her lungs are shot.

We talked a long time, we cried some but the damage has been done. I asked her what could I do and she replied, “do what you have been doing all these years. Be my friend and don’t bring this discussion up again among us because I don’t like talking about it.”

So I promised her I would honor her wishes, then went in and had a good cry. She was there when I divorced my first husband and she organized my “Thank God You Are Divorced” Party. Yes, boys and girls, my first husband was THAT bad! She was also the one who prodded me at that party (after my fifth marguerita) to answer an ad from a singles newspaper she had so carefully wrapped up my gift in. That ad, led to a four-year writing relationship long-distance and the ultimate marriage of Mike and I. I owe this woman a lot and I promised not to ditch her in her time of need. I have seen it among Mike’s “friends.” The gradual pulling away because long-term sickness makes many uncomfortable, and when Mike couldn’t supply his friends with what they were taking from him- mostly knives and other items he built- they just left. Didn’t talk about it, just left him confused and dazed and saying to me “What happened to Jack? Arty? Bill and Larry?”

When I am in New York, I am going to see if I can find something special for my friend who is struggling to survive. They have given her a three month window and time is running out.