Visits with Barbara

When I introduced my friend, Barbara, to my newborn baby,

both were bundled in blankets.

Barbara’s sullen tired face contrasted with my baby’s

pink chubby cheeks.

Two souls - One arriving and the other One-

departing this world.

Barbara had held on- for this moment–

For the chance to say hello.

Just the once.

She held my baby in her bony arms, embraced her for seconds,

before the light of her artic blue eyes flickered,

and her eyes closed.

The morphine pulled her away from reality, and lulled her into a deep sleep

 where I hoped she could escape her pain- where she could focus on the feel

of clean cotton sheets, a soft pillow under her head,

and a heavy comforter reassuring her.

I got up to leave.

I noticed the candy dish on her table was still full.

It felt wrong- she wouldn’t have left the candy.

Not if she was feeling right.

I grabbed a piece and popped it in my mouth.

For her.

In days, cancer carried my friend away.

I moved to a small town in northern Minnesota. There was only one house in our desired budget. We moved into the trailer home next to the old church. A lady in her late sixties lived in the church. Her yard was overgrown, the box-elder trees with dead branches, and a cream-colored and rusted Ranchero parked in the front yard, with flora of its own, growing in the back.

That’s when I first saw Barbara. She was in her yard, taking pictures of flowers, insects and trees.

My husband told me, “You should talk to her. I think you’d like her.”

We invited her for coffee, and a friendship blossomed.

Barbara was a hippy at heart. I learned that she refused to cut her grass, because she was waiting for the wild prairie flowers ( “before men ruined them”) to return.

In the winter, she dressed in fancy cashmere sweaters, and thick mink fur coats she had purchased new- decades before. Her wispy blonde-gray hair was always pulled into a neat bun when she went into town.

Barbara listened to my long-winded verbal processing, my rants about people in our dinky town, about race strategies for an upcoming 5k, running training plans, about writing essays, papers, and knitting for the county fair.

I doubt she cared about any of it. She cared about me.

That’s what I remember the most.

She was born in Minnesota but grew up in California, and took long vacations to Paris as a child where she slept in a cozy upstairs apartment with her mother. Her parents were estranged, her mom with her own whimsy, and her father desperately in love with her mother, but unable to hold on to her.

She returned to Paris as a teenager, with her sister, no doubt causing trouble. I saw her old pictures, her light blonde wavy hair, and clear blue eyes bright and full of laughter; she was destined to be a heartbreaker.

She hated her name, which meant foreigner. But she loved her fast, black car- a vintage thunderbird- with a roaring and rumbling engine. I learned of her marriages, and how she’d struggled with alcoholism and depression.

Photography and poetry were her passions- prettying the world with pictures, pansies, stanzas, and simple things. Her words were sometimes poetic but often snappy, sarcastic, and blunt.

She also liked the supernatural. Often, she said “visitors” (ghosts) came by, stopped in, and said hi to her. I didn’t want to believe her. It gave me the creeps. So, I said, “Oh, that’s nice.”

Barbara came over sometimes for birthdays, or for game night, for Gevalia coffee and sugary treats. That was before she holed herself up in her house, alone with her twenty-five cats- before she closed out the world. For her, the loneliness and bitterness were hard to keep at bay. People were cruel to her, judging her for the lingering smell of cigarettes and cats that clung to her clothes.

They missed the point.

They missed her.

But I was lucky enough- to be in on the secret.

As she neared the end, our in-person visits stopped. I rarely saw her. Our communication restricted to phone calls. She complained of awful backaches. Sometimes, I brought groceries to her front door for her. She had me leave them on her screened-in porch with the flimsy door and broken metal doorknob. I picked up her mail in a large reusable bag she gave me. It had an endangered species logo, and a poised leopard, printed on the front.

I don’t know how I missed why she couldn’t leave.

Or that she was tired. Struggling. Or that she was sick.

Had I known I would lose her-

Would I have held on tighter?

It has been four years since she left me.

 I will never hear her voice again.

The thought is hard.

So final.

 I’m lonely here in this town.

And I don’t like cats. Not like she did.

A sadness engulfs me sometimes.

 A lump rises in my throat at the thought of her, and

I long to see her again, and 

tell her all the things new in my life, and

for her to tell me everything will be okay.

I need to tell her everything:

How I used DNA to find my Dad,

how I graduated college,

how my kids are growing.

I need to tell her about my heart aches.

And my triumphs, too.

They say… (I don’t know who, but it’s well known) that

desperate people do desperate things.

And it’s been too long without her here.

I’m desperate.

Why not reach out to her?

I put two teacups on the table.

They are the oldest ones I have.

They were my great grandmother’s great aunt’s or something like that. Their blue printed flowers quaint. The gold-leafed handles curved and elegant. I put my enamel red kettle on the stove and wait for its breathless scream.

 I set the sugar bowl on the table with a tiny spoon. All three beeswax candles I own are on my maple wood dining room table. I pour the steaming water into each cup, put in the tea bags, add the sugar and stir them.

 I strike a match.

I light each candle.

I take a few deep breaths.

I turn out the lights.

Feeling foolish- I whisper,

 “Barbara.”

This is ridiculous.

 “Barbara, are you there?”

I get up and decide to forget this silliness.

She materializes in the chair opposite me.

 I gasp.

 I search for words.

My heart flutters.

 Like madness, kicking and alive in my chest.

 Her pale skin is- as I remember.

There’s a smile on her face, her ice-blue eyes looking into mine.

She sighs and says.

“Get your head out of your ass!”

Her voice sharp, cutting through the air.

She disappears.

I sit, trembling, staring at my teacup in the candlelight,

the gold handle gleaming.

I turn on the lights.

I blow out the candles,

 The smoke floats through the air.

 And I cry.

Ugly, sobbing, ridiculous crying.

 And then I laugh.…

 I laugh until my cheeks burn, my belly hurts and

my soul is restored.