Death came quietly in the night to a friend.
On Wednesday night there was a memorial service for a friend who died a week earlier. I hadn’t seen Rita all summer because of her health and my schedule, but we go back many years. She was one of the first women I hung out with when I came into the 12 step rooms. Her presence in my life then was significant in so many ways. She made me laugh, a lot, and I needed to learn how to laugh again. She saw the screwy side of life with such clarity. And she was able to cut to “the chase” when a situation called for it.
The memory that stands out most for me is when we were both committed to giving up cigarettes. I had been a 2+ pack a day person for a number of years. She, along with a number of other women, had come to my apartment to put on an AA meeting when I was too ill to go out. It was in December, shortly before Christmas. December 20th, in fact. And she had decided that giving the gift of being a “nonsmoker” to her family was the best gift she could offer them.
I had recently read one of John Powell’s books: He Touched Me, in which he shared how he had quit smoking by re-thinking who he was. Becoming a nonsmoker followed suit the more he thought of himself as that person. It was a natural progression, he had said. As I read the passages that would speak to Rita about this method, I snubbed out my own cigarette and never picked up another one. That was in 1976. Rita was not as successful as I was, but her request for help initiated my embarking on this new journey. I have always felt blessed to have had that opportunity to share Powell’s story with her.
But what pleases me even more about this whole experience with Rita is that we called each other a lot, attempting to be supportive as our bodies were adjusting to the absence of nicotine. Screaming for it, in fact. My calls were primarily whines about one aspect of my life or another. One day my whining got under her skin and she barked, “So what!” I was stunned. At first hurt but ultimately very grateful because her words snapped me out of the pity-pot cycle I was in. I didn’t laugh immediately, but before the day was over I was chuckling about her reaction to me.
I have thought about that comment hundreds of times over the years. I even included the experience in one of the books I wrote. It was exactly what I needed to be told and she had the courage to say it. I’ll miss Rita’s take on life and her hearty laugh. She had many illnesses over the last couple of decades but she kept moving forward, just more slowly. I admired her for that. She’ll be some one’s “angel on assignment” now that she’s on the other side. I firmly believe that whoever gets her will be lucky indeed.
