“Have you been able to drive by Mimi’s house?”  

I knew what my husband was asking.  It wasn’t about the house.  It had been a year of firsts for me, and yet there were things I had not been able to make myself do, yet.  

The firsts included a first Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Springtime, Birthday without my best friend of many years, Mimi.  But I hadn’t been able to drive that road to where she had lived, and see, for the first time a house now empty.  

My friend, who I met when I was ten years old, had died within two months of her cancer diagnosis. She was young and it seemed so fast I couldn’t comprehend, still can’t, that it could happen to someone as filled with life as she was. 

Perhaps that sounds cliche, because, of course it happens to people of all ages and situations, and it’s sad that we don’t understand that fragility of life until it strikes someone we love.  

This isn’t about cancer.  I’ve lost my parents to cancer. It’s about losing friends, and finding out that we’ve lost ourselves as well.  Parts of who we are live in the memories of friends who share our lives.  My sister used to say she needed a “life witness” or someone to remember who she was along the way, so she could share a memory or experience, and it would remain real. 

So, I relive, alone, times that I shared with Mimi. I can’t help myself.  We just passed the one year anniversary of her death, and I have had dreams about her every night.  As I slowly wake up in the morning, I am confused as to what really happened.  Can she be gone?

It’s been a year and I am beginning to believe that it all happened, and that life now is different and always will be.  She will begin to wane, like the old pictures we have of former years, she will lose the clarity of presence, the colors will fade.  

What remains?  Of course the memories, and they are priceless, but now unspoken.  No one wants to reminisce about times they don’t recall.  I know.  Yet there are times when I hear myself speaking her name, laughing about something we did, crying because she would have loved this moment or that thing.  

That is what mourning truly looks like.  It isn’t those first days and weeks of tears and changes, although that is part of it.  It is the years after that of a space in life that will never be filled.  No one you know and love is replaceable.  

I will treasure the wild tales I review in my dreams, waking or sleeping.  I wish I could look into the eyes of a friend who knew the childhood me, and the hopes and dreams that we spun on long summer nights as we took our first steps out into the world.

When I meet new people, make new friends, perhaps they will be even more precious to me because I know how fleeting it all is.  And just for my own hearts sake, I might tell a story about an amazingly funny friend I had.  Please be patient with me if I need to share those once in a while.  

Her name was Mimi.  You would have loved her.