A Love Letter to My Dear Friend

Last month I was in California for a weekend event with English poet David Whyte. As I was listening to him share some of his beautiful poems about friendship, my best friend was dying of cancer. 

I returned home on a Sunday and two days later she was gone. 

I am so grateful that I was with her on her final day. Our relationship spanned decades; she was with me during my pregnancies and the loss of my first child; she loved and supported my teenage daughter; we laughed and cried together and sometimes raged at one another. 

She often pushed me into situations that were uncomfortable, and it was her encouragement and belief in me that got me through.  

Walking into her home that last day, my legs were shaking. I knew I was there to say goodbye, and I didn’t know if I could do it. 

But the words of David Whyte guided me. One theme he had repeated over the weekend was: stop, pause, and listen. 

So I sat beside her, with one hand on her belly, and watched her breathe. In the pause, I felt the most incredible connection. Though she couldn’t speak, I was able to hear her ask me to give her husband a message of thanks. I was able to whisper to her that it was OK for her to let go. 

This process of letting go wasn’t an easy journey for either of us. As her illness progressed, she was often in a lot of pain. One time, I asked if I could do a healing on her. When I connected with her breath and her body, I felt such fear there. It was an aggressive energy, like a black prickly porcupine. 

I asked her to breathe more deeply in order to surrender. 

“But I don’t want to surrender,” she said, “If I do, then I’ll die.”

As we breathed together, I focused on staying in the light and soon felt her body soften. She called the next day and said, “I haven’t slept that well in six months.”

I wish I could have completely healed my dear friend. Ultimately, I had to let go of my anger and desire to fix things. When I stopped and paused and listened, the lesson I heard is that sometimes there is nothing I can do!

In her last months, she learned to stop, pause, and listen. She wanted to live in the moment. 

That’s what she taught me: to take it all in. 

Notice a sunset, a beautiful sky, or the full moon. 

When we cultivate stillness and presence within ourselves and in nature, we open our hearts and are able to be present to one another, even in the midst of pain. 

David Whyte put it so beautifully when he said, 

“...the ultimate touchstone of friendship is witness, 

the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”

Thank you, Donnette, for allowing me to witness your light and for walking beside me on this journey.