Death, A Misunderstanding, and Stirrups

July 16, 2015

This morning I met my best friend Sarah at a funeral visitation. Our dear pal Ellen lost her eldest brother suddenly and we went to hug her and give her the love you give your friends when awful happens. 

Ellen is absolutely gorgeous and her beauty is effortless. She is maybe ten years older than me and one of the happiest people I've ever met. But she isn't so happy you want to slap her. She is just genuinely at the happy helm of her life. 

Several nuggets of memories bubbled up in the midst of the morning. 

The first is that Ellen's brother was a doctor. A lady doctor. Long before I met Ellen, he gave me my first PAP Smear. 

It's a small world.

The second is my favorite Ellen story. Ellen's mom passed away several years ago. She was a classy lady named Shirley. Ellen was taking care of Shirley's house after her death. It had been weeks since her mother's passing when Ellen was headed inside the house.

Shirley's neighbor, for reasons that escape me, did not know that Shirley had died. Ellen wasn't aware of this necessarily, but did know that this neighbor, while truly kind, was also a big talker. As Ellen saw the neighbor on this fateful day, she said hello, but headed into the house as quickly as possible to avoid a lengthy neighborly chat. In true Seinfeldian fashion, the neighbor called to her as she opened the front door, "Tell Shirley hello for me!"

"Will do!" She replied as the screen door slammed behind her.

It wasn't until she was inside that she realized what she had done.

"It was a reflex!" she cried, telling us the story not long after. 

What in the hell was she to do now? she wondered. That's a tough conversation to have, we all agreed. "Hey, by the way, when you asked me to say hello to Mom the other day...well...that's a toughie..."

It was several weeks of strategic avoidance played out by my good friend before she finally had to come clean. In true Ellen fashion, she owned it. And I have loved her all the more ever since. Classic.

The third and final moment was that, as Sarah and I entered the chapel, the OB/GYN who delivered Grace was the first person I saw. She has no clue who I am (she wasn't my actual doc, but rather the one on call that day; and I'm sure it's hard to place faces after fourteen years and thousands of, well, stirrups and episiotomies and placentas, etc...) I thought to myself, though, how nice. Two important days in Nancy's gynecological life are coming together here at the funeral home. 

It is a small world indeed.