Bonnie

I've been wanting (and not wanting) to write this post for quite a while now.  No matter how much time I spend thinking about it, it's not gonna write itself.  And time is of the essence: my friend Bonnie is slipping away from this life.

I wrote once before about how college friends are (maybe) the best friends you can ever have.  They see you for who you are, without the trappings of home and money and status.  They see you through the crucial life-changing-decision years, and the ones who remain are friends for life.  It's surreal to see that life ending so soon.

I first met Bons when I came back from Europe.  She was a close friend of my five new roommates and became lovingly known as our "pseudo-roommate."  In the first few weeks she mostly laid on our couch, pining over an ended relationship.  I wasn't sure what to think of her - except that at least she'd HAD a relationship, which was more than I could say.
It got better from there!

Bonnie was articulate and spontaneous and delightful, not least because she didn't seem to care what people thought of her.  She sang the tenor part in choir.  We went to a midnight showing of Pirates 3 and drove around the roundabout 20 times afterward.  We spent a weekend in Roosevelt (including Tyson!?), hiking and swimming across a freezing windy reservoir, building a bonfire and screaming at a near-crash.  She went to London, I moved out, Lu went to Jerusalem and then moved in with her.

I remember walking to a football game at Lavell Edwards Stadium and listening to her talk about her first date with Adam.  She'd been crushing on him at work; as soon as the interest was reciprocated it didn't take long. She was so happy.  They got married a couple weeks before Slice and I did.

Bonnie moved across the country and had two babies close to mine, and we became blog friends.  I loved her wise comments on my musings and her posts about life with an opera singer.  Then she got cancer.  And she wrote beautiful, humorous and heart-wrenching things about her experiences with treatment.
She got a grim diagnosis.  She accepted it with courage and grace.

I've watched Bonnie mostly from afar, these last several years.  But I'm so grateful for what I have learned from her.  I've learned to cherish the mundane moments of young motherhood. to count myself fortunate to be with these kids another day. I've learned to be more patient with myself and others. To love more completely.

I'm learning to find the humor, the joy in dark times. I'm trying to be more generous. More brave.

I think of Bonnie and her family often, wishing there was something any of us could do to change this course.  But her beautiful children are a legacy to a great woman - to two wonderful people who love each other - a loving Heavenly Father and an eternal bond.
Thank you, Bonnie, for everything.  I'll love you forever.