dear, dear

Dear Martha,




I don't really know what to say. I got your letter today. Sandi and I were sitting drinking coffee and going through a mountain of mail and I saw an envelope hand addressed to me. I opened it, saw the folded pages of a hand written letter and thought, "Oh, someone is mad at me and written me a letter to tell off." And in those moments between when I pulled the lined pages out and unfolded them...those were the moments that may define my life from here.





I flipped through the pages and began to shake. I looked up at Sandi with horrified eyes. "Oh, no. Oh, no," I kept saying. "What? What? What happened?" she asked, increasingly alarmed.





I couldn't speak. I couldn't comprehend. I saw the letter and the photocopy of your will and I knew.

You see, we had an appointment the day before, you and I. My beloved friend, my mentor. I had called you that morning around 11 a.m. to remind you. So much had happened in your life in the previous 6 weeks. I called and reminded you of our appointment, telling you to call me if you couldn't make it. Then I waited for you for an hour at the appointed time, worried about your whereabouts and angry that you had stood me up. I had paid a babysitter after all and was losing money waiting for you to come. I went to the grocery store instead, my anger abating, my fear growing.




This was so unlike you. You only went far from home to go on expedition trips to Antarctica or the Falcon Islands or Egypt. These faraway places I could only dream of, places you would return from with gifts for my girls. A solo world traveler, one of the boldest, bravest, most utterly fabulous women I know. I called you 15 times. Your cell was not in service and the house phone where I had been able to leave a message earlier was now not functional. Sandi came home and I told her I had a nagging dread about it and hoped you were okay.


The truth is you were long gone and I did not know. I had no idea that a mile away from me, four days before on Sandi's birthday, you took your life.



You had it all thought out. The letter you wrote me was dated September 21 and the postmark was Oct. 7 which means you must have left it in your outgoing mail on the 6th, the day you died. You carefully outlined your wishes in a will crafted with the exact components, since you were a lawyer and knew precisely how to do it.



People have a lot of thoughts and opinions about suicide. Most feel it is selfish and that if people thought about how much they would hurt loved ones, it would rid them of the urge. As I have searched my heart since I found out, I find I think differently than I once did. I am, of course, aching with the knowledge of your pain, your hopelessness. But past that, I feel this was your right to choose your end- to plan it, to execute it and to very deliberately decide your destiny. Perhaps we are the selfish ones that would rather you be here, living a life you no longer wanted for very real reasons, in physical and emotional turmoil, just to save us the pain of losing you. I actually find myself thinking that I wish you hadn't had to be alone when you made your transition and, regardless of how impossible, I wish I could have held your hand.



I am a little selfish in my grieving you as much as I want to be okay with your departure. I will miss you so. My flower gardens are filled almost entirely of plants that you divided from your own and I wonder how my perennials will find their way back up in the spring in a world where you are not. How my tomatoes will ever grow so delicious if they are not raised from seeds in your greenhouse with your loving hands. I wonder who I will call when my sorbet won't freeze, I don't understand something Julia Child has written in the cookbook you gave me, my sourdough won't rise and I don't know if I should cut back the sage in my garden or leave the woody stems to toughen in the winter snow. I wonder if anyone else I know can make lavender ice cream and who will bring by blueberry date bread for me at Christmas. Who will call me, "Suzanne, dear" each and every time we talk and tell me what a good mom I am. I wonder how I will ever find a friend who will be in my life what you were.

I drove past your house today and I wonder how it possible that you are not there, your incredible flower gardens brown and withered, both because of the harsh fall nights and your absence. I sat in your driveway in my car wanting to sit in the front yard made up of rare and beautiful flowers rather than boring old grass, wanting you to peak your head out from the curtain and tell me there had been some awful mistake.


The invisible threads that hold life together have become completely apparent to me. Suddenly, I can see how the places that you and I intersected have become part of the fabric of my life, like sturdy stitches on a patchwork quilt. I see it with all the people I know and love. Those that we surround ourselves with, those we give our hearts to, every bit defines our life. You have helped define mine and there is a hole now I am unsure how to suture. The world felt palpably different today without you in it.


Thank you for writing to me, a letter so beautiful the first line says, "You have been just the best friend a woman could want." Thank you for explaining to me why you choose this for yourself. Thank you for freeing me of wondering if there was something I could have done differently to change the course of your destiny. Thank you opening your house and your yard to me and the girls so I know where the tea was kept, could open the fridge without permission, knew when you gave me a leg off your peony plant that you did it as a way of sharing part of your heart with me. Thank you for the tulips you gave Ella and Maya for their birthdays last year that can remind us of you every spring. Thank you for treasuring me in your heart so much that you wanted me to have some of the gifts of your life, gifts that will likely change the course of my life forever. Thank you for holding my hand this winter when life was so very hard, for sharing the secrets of living that only one who has lived 60 years knows. Thank you for touching my life. Thank you, most of all, for being my friend.

I hope you know how much I love you and how deeply I will miss you. Love, Suzanne