My Friend, Irene.

I am missing my friend.  Today is her birthday.  I met her years ago. I was on the committee to locate classmates for our class reunion and went to her place to find her son’s latest address.  We had such a nice visit and quickly found out we had so much in common.  Before we knew it, we were meeting up at the tea house for tea and scones, heading to garden centers, out for lunch, or just having a visit in each other’s homes. I don’t know what I liked most about her, she had so many qualities, but I think the quality that stands out most in my mind was how she put everyone else before herself.  She took the Bible verse ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ to a new degree…always putting herself last and making the person with her feel so special.  When I would ask her how she was, she would just pass it off with a simple…’fine, (with a shrug) don’t worry about me’, it was like she was wondering why in the world I would even want to know how she was doing.  And then immediately she would ask how I was and everyone else in my family too.  Even after her heart attack, when she had plenty of reason to complain, I told her that I was praying for her to get well, she seemed so unwilling to even have me take time to pray for her.  Her words were, ‘thanks, but don’t worry about me…pray for somebody who needs prayer.’  She just didn’t want anybody to feel like she had imposed on them.  When I would take a little bag of cookies over for them, she would always try to send them back home with me.  Accepting a gift was so hard for her.  But GIVING a gift was so easy.  I learned really quick not to admire something in a store or garden center.  One time while we were out for coffee, I went to the bathroom and when I came back, there sat a little ornament that I had looked at when we first went in!  The same thing happened at garden centers or even in her own yard.  I would admire her flowers as we toured her yard and next time I showed up, there sat a pot of it ready for me to take home.  My yard has a bunch of plants that she either bought or dug up for me.  Even though we spent hours talking in all those years, it was not until her last days when I sat with Wally chatting, that I saw even more how in all those years, all those conversations, she had managed to keep the focus off of herself and talk about me, or my family instead. When I would admire the painted things on her walls, she would tell me her daughter painted them.  I found out that some of those things SHE had painted!  I found out she was a good dancer and even knew how to clog dance.  So many little things that she never thought important enough tell me.  She had not wanted to brag about herself.

 In her last days, that 'others first' quality didn’t change one bit.  When she began to lose track of her days and nights and the passing of time.  I would ask her how she was today and her reply would be, ‘fine’ (with a shrug) and then she would say “but I’m worried about you…you need to get some sleep, you have been here all night!”  Even though it was daytime and I had just arrived.  Always, she was thinking of the other person and not wanting them to be imposed upon.  I will miss my chats with her, our tea times and every time I walk in my garden I will see her gifts of flowers and remember her.