The Friend I Used to Know

It’s raining again, torrents of water, blazes of light and thunderbooms, making outside an impossibility.

Confined, I close all windows and stalk the floors in a prison of boredom and frustration, thinking about a friend I used to know.

My dear one still inhabits her evanescent frame, but her beautiful mind has fled; she no longer recognizes me.

This past Sunday, I sit sandwiched between her and her husband, a strong tower of a man whose sturdy presence reassures us both that somehow it’s going to be okay.

How?

Memories that once anchored her to me, to others, have slipped from the depths and motored away.

I remember the years she poured into the children of our church, my children, Sunday after Sunday, teaching the littles to love Jesus and one another. She was a brilliant light who attracted their innocent shiny souls to herself, like a cluster of stars shimmering and glowing in a galaxy of joy.

There were paper arks and popsicle stick crosses, glue and googly-eyed lambs, singing and laughing and prayer.

Though she sits beside me still, I miss the her she used to be, and I’m not sure what to do with this new layer of sad.

I wonder about my own mind, whether it might one day also go, and what that might mean, as there is no strong tower next to me. My kids, of course, have promised that they will honor my only request, should circumstance require, of a room with a view of anything besides another wall. A place where they don’t pretend decaf is coffee.

My friend suspected what what coming for her; her own mother slowly faded into dementia, and the prayers we prayed, that she would have a different fate, have not been answered in the way we had hoped.

Both of my own parents had a similar end.

It’s too soon to be afraid.

We must not lose heart.

If this Jesus is real, the One who tells us over and over and over again fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom, then I know that one day, some day, I will sit with her once again, surrounded by the children she loved so well, and she will be wholly, beautifully, joyfully there.