Recently I dreamed about my good friend Jean. That’s the only way I get to visit with her now. She died a few years ago. As a young adult, she had been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, having to inject herself in the abdomen every morning. One time I naively watched, only then realizing the severity of her condition. Diabetes is deadly serious, the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. with more than 250,000 deaths annually. By the time Jean was 60, she had experienced every single one of the health battles brought on by this disease.
She didn’t deserve it. She was tall and slender, naturally tan with shining green cat eyes and a wide smile, outgoing with lots of friends, a member of local film societies and astronomy clubs. Her most distinctive feature was her raspy voice, the sexy tone of a long-time smoker. Jean was happiest when smoking a cigarette. I never warned her about smoking, how doctors say it makes diabetes even worse. I figured she knew all about diabetes and the risks. Smoking seemed her greatest pleasure in life, and I was not about to hound her, because I cherished our friendship.
Jean was a few years older than me. We met at a party. She and I had similar interests and enjoyed each other’s company. We started a girls’ night of sorts: exploring new restaurants, seeing movies and shows, or just visiting over the phone. We liked foreign films and art flicks and Baby Boomer rock. She was very professional, a paralegal who took her work and appearance seriously. I was just learning how to create a career in journalism and later education. She would review my resume, part of her duties while seeking employees for law firms, and over a cigarette advise me wisely.
She became someone I could tell my troubles to such as dating, getting along with co-workers and dealing with assorted bosses. She was like an older sister. We went through a bout of unemployment. That’s probably when we spent the most time together, just visiting, cooking meals for each other, and going to the dollar cinema to pretend we were part of the working masses. Jean was a feminist, one of those who graduated in the early 1970s. She was of an era I admired, and she was better versed than I on subjects like women’s rights. She could sniff out sexism when I still gave men the benefit of the doubt.
Things my best friend taught me:
Tip restaurant servers at least 20 percent, more for excellent service; wear hats to get attention from men; always use table clothes and real linen napkins; buy flowers and split them into bouquets throughout the house; when driving, try to get off the highways as soon as possible because it’s safer.
After yet another unemployment streak as a paralegal, Jean had to move from Texas to Florida and was finally doing well for awhile. She lived within walking distance of the beach, something she missed while living in north Texas. She grew up in Delaware and talked about clambakes and fish boils right on the beach. She loved lighthouses, too, so one Christmas I bought her a picture calendar of assorted ones, each similar yet unique, just like us. Jean bought a nice three-bedroom Florida home complete with a lanai, a patio and swimming pool area enclosed in a sheer netting to keep bugs out. A couple times a year, we’d call each other. While listening to her adventures and then advice to improve my life mostly at work, I was soothed by the background sound of rolling waves from the nearby coast.
One summer I flew out for a visit. She took me to her astronomy club late at night in the Florida Everglades. There was no light, but the sky was filled with millions of stars. Her colleagues used high-powered telescopes and showed me different planets. In the near distance was the sound of a creature I’d never heard. I described the mooing as a satanic cow. The Floridians laughed, telling me it was an alligator or crocodile. Both live in the swamps where we stood.
To have juvenile diabetes, Jean lived pretty well, taking insulin regularly, and had a great big appetite. She could eat anything and not gain a pound. She kept hard candies in her car just in case of an insulin spike. If we were at a late-night bar, she always ordered an Irish coffee “without the whiskey.” She was cautious with alcohol, telling me about a time when she was younger and had been drinking with friends and took a cab home. The driver detected she was drunk and walked her to her house then forced his way in and attacked her. Nothing happened as she screamed until he left. She took the incident as a wake-up call to improve and never leave herself vulnerable like that again.
She reduced smoking to a few cigarettes a day but not entirely quitting cold turkey. She was able to live a seemingly healthy life with diabetes during her 30s and 40s. But after she turned 50, the disease declared an all-out war. Jean was unemployed again during a Florida recession when diabetes was affecting her eyesight. As the years passed, with each phone call I realized diabetes was taking a toll on her health. She had to undergo eye surgery and doctor visits that involved a needle in the eyes, all due to diabetes. The procedures were not successfully restoring her vision. And at some point, she knew she would never be employed again. Because her situation was dire, I advised her to sell the house and move in with her mother in Delaware. A year later, that is what she had to do.
So I started calling her every now and then in Delaware. Again, Jean’s prognosis was not good. Soon she was undergoing dialysis due to kidney failure and was placed on a list for a kidney and heart transplant. She lost her sight and though she was living in her childhood home, one day she walked into something she didn’t see on the floor, and the fall broke her hip. She had to be moved into a convalescent center. I’m sure that was the lowest moment of her life. I realized I needed to plan a trip to see her.
A Yankee-Rebel friendship
I flew up to Delaware, met Jean’s mom, noticing the matching light green eyes of the two women. Jean, smiling merrily, had to use a walker to get around. I don’t think she could see me. We had made all kinds of plans, like spending the night at my hotel (where she needed to know where she could smoke since it wasn’t permitted in the rooms) and taking the Amtrak the next day to Philadelphia. I was leery this plan, that reinvigorated her so much, may fall through. Sure enough, she called late night to cancel, explaining she was going to the hospital about her leg. A side effect of dialysis, Jean had gained water weight in her calves, and one kinda erupted with fluid and needed medical attention. I toured Philly alone.
The next day Jean was able to take me to Amish Country in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I did not realize I would be driving. She arranged for a rental car, and we three women drove out there, Jean sitting in the back sipping on a soda as her elderly mother guided me from the front passenger side. Whenever we stopped for a break, Jean mysteriously left. Her mother knew what she was doing. She’d spot Jean sitting outside having a smoke and scold her daughter harshly. I played it down, trying to persuade her mother to consider the big picture, though never saying aloud, “Jean’s dying. Let her enjoy her life.”
On our final day together, Jean wanted me to drive her around her hometown, a historic locale settled off the Delaware River in the 18th century. She had me drive her to row houses in what seemed a rough area. She asked what I thought about her moving into one, to have her own place again. She was determined she’d get to work again once her health improved. Despite declining health, Jean never lost her vitality and spirit to work for a living. She was able to get both Medicare and Medicaid, thanks to lawyers who knew how to fight the system on her behalf. Jean was blind, on dialysis and a transplant list. Why would our government give someone like that a hard time? Jean went to dialysis three times a week—and the ordeal took the entire day, leaving her exhausted and needing to recuperate the following day.
During our visit, I gave Jean a unique piece of jewelry I had bought for myself. It was a replica charm bracelet from the British royal family featuring a half dozen or more gold crosses, each with a different faux jewel: ruby, diamond, emerald, sapphire. On the back of each cross were engraved Biblical passages. Jean loved it and wore it to all her dialysis treatments as a conversation piece. I wanted it to make her feel beautiful and loved. When it was time for me to leave, Jean was chatting about nothing important while looking away from my direction. I hugged her and choked back tears to say, “You’ve been a really good friend, Jean, my best friend in life.” Jean, in her raspy voice, smiled and replied sheepishly, “Ahhhh! You’re my buddy! We had all sorts of fun together.” Her mother stood by, quietly witnessing two friends saying goodbye forever.
Months later I called. This time Jean told me one of her legs had been amputated. Trying to keep the conversation upbeat, I asked about her artificial limb, how’s she doing learning to walk again. I didn’t mean for that to be our last conversation. But calling her time and again was so heartbreaking. I waited a year later … then called one night around Christmas. Her mother did not remember me and sounded suspicious when I asked to speak to Jean. I recounted my trip to Delaware and how Jean had been my friend in Texas for a long time. Her mother finally told me Jean had passed away a few months ago. Tears welled for a brief moment. I was surprised but not really. Jean, her mother explained, had been in the hospital with pneumonia and with all the other complications, her body gave out. She died on her birthday. Jean told me she thought people who died on their birth dates were special, that that was something so unique it must have some kind of cosmic connection.
Always practical when it came to legal matters, Jean assured me her final arrangements had been made including who to notify and that I was at the top of the list. But I was not called, and to this day I wonder about that. I quickly looked up her obituary online, finding it scant in details about her wonderful life and vivacious spirit, even brave battle with diabetes. Instead of flowers, mourners were requested to donate to her mother’s church. Jean was not religious. The only perfect thing about her brief obit was the picture, a close up of her with an ocean in the background. She’s clasping a glass of red wine while a big smile captures her joie de vivre.
Oh, if Jean were alive today! What she would say about our latest president. We would never stop laughing. Shared politics was perhaps our strongest bond. She once told me I was one of the very few liberals she had met in Texas. Perhaps she felt out of place. But she made the most of living in the Lone Star State, even hanging out with Texas legend Kinky Friedman, a highlight of her life. Jean and I shared cultural, political and even spiritual views. No wonder we enjoyed talking to each other. In fact, Jean would be so proud of me creating a blog called The Texas Tart. I imagine she reads every one wherever she is now. In the dream, I told her I was going to write one about her (silently realizing I’d have to address her struggle with diabetes). She beamed excitedly and told me, “That’s a great idea!”