Where we met
It doesn’t get easier, this business of learning a friend has died. The last time I communicated with Felicia, she posted something on my Facebook wall. I had said “happy birthday, beautiful woman!” on her wall. She wrote back that she wasn’t feeling well, due to chemo. I never wrote back. Sucks to hear she died.
Felicia came to my yoga classes when she had the strength. She had a fierce energy. While feeling sad today, I decided to reframe the way I looked at her death. Yes, I am sad she died. But then I thought how grateful I am to have known her and shared her energy.
I went to a yoga class and lost it in savasana. The teacher played “Fields of Gold” during savasana. “You’ll remember me when the west wind blows across the fields of barley.” There’s a version that goes “you’ll remember me when the west wind moves among the fields of the islands,” so appropriate, because her memory is woven into Puerto Rico: the caribbean sea, tropical trees — palms, flamboyans, mangoes and bananas, yoga to the sound of the ocean.
She so wanted to live. She sold her house to try an experimental treatment in Germany. It seemed to be working. Cancer is such a bitch.
I wish I could be there for her memorial service. I’m grateful to have known her.
Hi Jodi…thinking about you today. I’m so sorry about your loss. Sending love. xo
Effing cancer. I’m very sorry. This is – for me – a year to grapple with the intersection of my atheism and the crippling grief/hopelessness of losing someone forever. Probably you are not here with me, precisely, but I am sorry for this loss and for you.