We Will Survive

Last Thursday evening when I turned on my computer, there was an email from my friend, Elaine, who lives in Cleveland. Her email was short and to the point letting me know that her brother had passed away. My friend's mother had passed away almost two years ago. I knew that this was going to be tough for my friend. I thought a lot about Elaine and her loss. Her family is gone. There isn't much to add. I know exactly how she feels.

When we talked the following day, I told her I was sorry and she knew how I felt. I let her talk, and knew her feelings, right down to the final period of our conversation. It is hard to believe that we have been friends for over 40 years. Our friendship started out in St. Louis when we were first married. Our connection was firmly sealed when we first met each other. We seem to have a lot in common. We both grew up in Cleveland, we attended different all-girl high schools, each had an older brother, and we married our husbands, who had gone to the same high school, college and medical school together, and roomed with each other for a year. Our husbands were in their second year of medical school when we got married.

We would remain friends through the years, through all our moves, all our children (Elaine with four, and me with nine, we also lived together for a few months, and then each of us settled down in separate states. We called and kept in touch by phone.

We shared our divorces and were able to lean on and depend on one another. Our phone calls always seemed to occur when one of us was at our lowest point, and our voices would magically appear on the other side of the phone line to prop the other one up.

I made sure that I was with my friend when her ex remarried. There was no way I would let her be alone on that day. Even though I had suggested that we should become wedding crashers, we didn't but it made us laugh, and get through an otherwise difficult day with all those bittersweet memories thrown in. She was there with me when my daughter got married to make sure that I had support facing my ex and his new wife.

Now we both have lived through the deaths of our brothers, leaving us the last member or our own small families - mother, father, brother. We share those feelings of loss and being left behind and being alone. We know how each other feels, without saying a word.

Years ago, when my one son got married, Elaine and I danced together to Gloria Gaynor's, "I Will Survive." We danced with abandonment, tears and sang along with the words. I know we are both survivors and we will survive this period of our lives too.