12.19.02 r.i.p

I can imagine my mother and her best friends, short skirts and carefully curled hair, cutting class and giggling as they smoked behind the school. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, parties, accepting rides from boys who drove hot rods too fast down winding country roads. The county fair and the destruction derby. Cigarettes and alcohol, fast cars and the Beatles. High school graduation followed within weeks by marriage, and within the year, babies.

We grew up with our parents and the shine of adolescent friendships faded under the weight of real life, sick kids, jobs and school, hard work all the time and no more parties, no more cutting out.

My mother named me after her two best friends from high school. One of those girls died on Wednesday evening after a terrible struggle with lung cancer.

R.I.P.

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