August 26, 2013. It was a date we three musketeers -- my BFFs Julie and Judy and I -- used to joked about as we were headed off to colleges 31 years ago. It was a date we thought was EONS away. It was fun back then, to wonder what our lives would be like when the first of our crazy threesome turned 50. Julie and I would follow, in September and October. We teased that she was the oldest. One thing's for sure...however we'd imagined it in our young minds, we still assumed we'd be together to celebrate turning a "half-century" old. Life, however, has a way of throwing monkey wrenchesi nto your best-laid plans... in this case it was a pink monkey wrench,
Today would have been my dear friend Judy's 50th birthday. Even as recently as seven years ago, as we waited for her to have her latest pet scan, I reminded Judy that in a few short years this nightmare would be over and that we'd all be dancing at her 50th birthday party. She really believed it that day. Or perhaps she wanted ME to think she did. Looking back I now know she was staying positive despite the fact that her breast cancer had returned and was now metastasizing at an alarming rate.
I couldn't let today go by without somehow acknowledging Judy's birthday and that of her twin sister, Janet, both of whom are now gone, both having succumbed to breast cancer, only 11 months apart. The only difference was that Judy fought her cancer for six years while Janet, who was diagnosed the same year she lost her twin sister, wasn't able to fight it as long. I'll never know if Janet ever told her dying sister she also had the disease.
While I'm sad to think my dear friend and I will never call each other on our milestone birthdays again, the image of Judy and her sister celebrating today together makes me smile.
As I reflected on Judy this past weekend, I was struck by the profound ways in which Judy's life touched mine. It wasn't just the love and laughter shared between girlfriends, but the life lessons she taught me. In hindsight I'd say that Judy affected the trajectory of my life. A few examples:
Stop whining about your curves. To a teen aged girl, being skinny was the most important thing. At 5'9, Judy taught me that being tall and skinny was just as challenging as being short and curvy. "At least you don't look like a teen aged BOY," she'd always say as I lay down on my bed using pliers and struggling to zip up my jeans.
Judy Saved my soul: This is one is a biggie. As a cradle Catholic -- I'd attended both parochial and public school -- I'd become a lapsed catholic teen regarding my faith. My mom had become increasingly disabled with her lifelong ailment and she never pushed me to attend mass, so I'd stopped going, telling myself none of my "cool" friends went to church anymore. None except Judy, who would NEVER miss mass. If we went out on a Saturday evening, Judy dragged me along to 5:30 mass at St. Theo's. If not, she'd call me to tell me to get "my butt" to mass the next morning. I did it good-naturedly, but even after Judy had married and started her own family, I stayed involved in my faith for the rest of my life. Judy's faith served her well in the years of her trials. If she ever lost faith it was never around me. I remember anointing her with holy water from Lourdes the year before she died. She had on a scarf and looked so pale and frail, yet as I dabbed some on her forehead, a bright smile came over her face and she said "See, I brought you back to the church, you brought me holy water."
To this day, nearly five years after the New Years' Eve morning she died, the image of her lying in her bed at home, with the Christmas tree up, a beautiful snow scene outside and candles, rosaries, mass cards and loved ones all around remind me that death doesn't have to be dark and ugly. It can be beautiful when you have faith.
If it weren't for Judy I'd have missed my prom: After breaking up with our high school sweethearts right before the senior prom, Julie, Judy and I were in a panic over not going to THE biggest social event we'd looked forward to since...oh....the fifth grade. :) At a sleepover at my house, Judy and our friend Julie and I hatched a plan to find dates for each other. We poured over the boys in our yearbooks and decided which ones would make suitable dates. I was looking for a subtle way to ask the boy Judy liked but she wasn't quite so subtle. She basically cornered the poor young man I had "chosen" while I was still within earshot and told him I liked him and I was free to go to prom with him. End of story. It could have backfired, but lucky for me the boy was a friend I'd known since my days at St. Mary's, so it worked. But this whole idea was JUDY'S. Were it not for her, I'd have sat home eating ice cream out of the pint had she not come up with her scheme. :)
One girl's trash....Remember to put your Girlfriends FIRST: Anyone who knows Judy and me from way back knows that I eventually became engaged to Judy's high school sweetheart. That sounds pretty awful of me until you know that Judy was already dating her future husband when her ex and I, who'd long been buddies, fell in love in our late 20s. Still, I'd broken the code all BFFs share...NEVER date the ex. Yes, she slapped me across the face at a party and her anger caused us to go almost nine months without speaking. Eventually, though, Judy gave in to my calls and letters and came to realize our bond went deeper than any bond with a boyfriend could go. She forgave me and became my bosom buddy again. When that engagement eventually ended, it was Judy who helped me cancel the hall and dress orders and let me cry on her shoulder, all the while reminding me of the many quirks he had that I would have hated to live with, long-term. Years later we'd share private giggles about this man. Even after I'd married my husband, she'd ask me in a whispery voice, wasn't I glad I dodged a bullet? (For the record that man is still a very dear friend of mine.) :)
Judy appreciated my mom even when I didn't. As a young teen the least cool person in MY eyes was my own MOM. Judy, however, loved my mom and used to say how lucky I was to have a "hip, mod mom." To be fair, Judy's mom was an older mom and she and her sister were the youngest kids in a large family so her mom couldn't be so "mod." What stands out for me is the first Friday after we buried my mother. I was home alone, deeply grieving and feeling isolated on a sunny spring afternoon. At 5:30 someone tapped on my door. It was Judy, pizza and margaritas in hand. That evening we sat in my family room and watched chick flicks as Judy and I reminisced about the many fun times we'd had with my "cool" mom. Judy gave me lost of laughs reminding me how much my mom, a former hairdresser with a flair for fashion and makeup, influenced her sense of style. By then, Judy had a busy growing family, yet she took the time to comfort me. It remains one of the sweetest memories I have of a very dark time in my life.
Years later, a group of my high school girlfriends and I were only too happy to return the favor, as we became her "Christmas decorators" for the next few years, opening countless boxes of nutcrackers and bulbs and decorating as we drank her husband's special margaritas. Judy had enough decorations to rival Bronners!! This became a tradition we continued until she died and beyond. After her death, Judy's husband gave us all the opportunity to take home some of Judy's many ornaments. I now keep her glitter deer on my mantle.
D-R-A-M-A was Judy's middle name: If anyone put the D in drama, it was my friend Judy. no matter WHAT was happening, Judy had a distinct way of telling you about it in a way that made it sound like a tabloid shouting out details in BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS. True-to-form, even the way I learned about Judy's breast cancer diagnosis was not a tear-soaked declaration but a dramatic proclamation. Here's how the call went, as I sat in my office at work:
PHONE RINGS:
ME: Hello?
JUDY: I have CANCER. Can you BELIEVE it? CANCER!!!!!
ME: What? Cancer? WHERE?
JUDY: In my BREAST!!!
ME: Impossible, Jude, you don't even HAVE breasts! (bad joke, I know) to which she shouted:
"I KNOW!! If ANYONE has plenty of boobies to spare it's YOU!" Even on that awful day, she managed to make me laugh.
One thing she focused on for years even before her cancer was the fact that I was over 35 and STILL.NOT.MARRIED. I would cringe when I’d hear her voice on the other end of the phone asking, in her breathy dramatic way, what ARE we going to do to get you MARRRRRRIED???? My own Italian mom never fretted about me, yet there was Judy, reminding me I’m not getting any younger. It used to infuriate me. I can’t remember which publication caused chaos when it infamously stated that women over 40 were more likely to be hit by lightning than finding a husband but I will never forget the dramatic phone call by Judy one night at 11:15 to read it to me. "I laughed. She was dead serious. WOMAN WE GOTTA GET YOU MARRIED!" was her (LOUD ) battle cry.
To that end, the shout heard at the other end of the phone was equally LOUD the day I called to tell her I was finally TRULY engaged to my now-husband. It was as if she didn't have to worry about me anymore. I SO wanted her to be a bridesmaid but by then she was undergoing chemotherapy. She bravely attended my wedding, bringing along her then very young daughter to the church. I can proudly claim I was Olivia's first wedding! Once in a while, I'll pop my wedding DVD in to catch Judy, her white-blond spiky hair just growing in, standing up with my girlfriends, doing a comedic bit they'd choreographed. I'll treasure that video forever.
Judy led me to my fertility doctor: Of course now that I was married, Judy was on BABY WATCH, 24/7. EVERY.SINGLE.MONTH. she called to see if I was yet pregnant. When I lamented that nothing was working, she called me back five minutes after we ended our call and told me to "call this number NOW." It was her endocrinologist, Dr. Maria Hayes, who had helped Judy to have her second child, Olivia. After exhausting every effort short of In Vitro, Dr. Hayes told us to take a month off and then she'd do Ovarian surgery. Imagine the great joy when she had to halt the surgery seven weeks later because I was pregnant! From then on, Judy always referred to our impending blessing as "Baby Judy."
Judy saved my daughter from certain starvation: As a new mom, I was going by a rather strict regimented book that suggested you feed your baby EVERY FOUR HOURS and not a moment sooner. The book's premise was that in this way, YOU are in control of your child and not vise-verse. There was only one problem with this method. Babies will still cry. Judy came over one evening after hearing my exhausted voice on the phone trying to talk over a wailing child and told me to feed my daughter NOW. I looked at my clock and quickly pointed out we still had 18 minutes before her next feeding. Judy was having NONE of it. SHE announced I was STARVING my child and she ordered me to get a bottle immediately. Turns out she was right. The minute she picked up my daughter, then just 12 weeks old and popped the bottle into her mouth, Marlena stopped crying and became content! I threw away that book and decided Judy was right….you go by the BABY, not by some book. She also had a conniption that Marlena was still sleeping in her bassinet. I said I preferred keeping her in there because the baby was too small for that huge crib. She was born six weeks early, after all. Not one to back down, Judy stuck my daughter in that crib and my child started sleeping through the night that very night.
So you see, Judy was a valued presence in my life. I'll always be grateful for her friendship and all I learned from her along the way. Tonight, I will raise a glass to my friend, and maybe put on some Debbie Harry or REO Speedwagon, hearkening back to days spent tooling around in our little cars, looking forward to all the wonders of life that stretched out in front of us in our glory days.
Happy Birthday, Judy and Janet. I know 50 would have looked damned good on you both. One thing's for sure...you both taught me to CELEBRATE my 50th, rather than mourn my youth. After all, not everyone makes it to this milestone birthday. Plus, I've got added incentive .... since you two never had the chance to celebrate, I've gotta do it for all of us! I hope they have lots of your favorite strawberry margaritas in Heaven, and plenty of REO blasting on the boom box. :)
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