Last week, I traveled to say goodbye to one of my best friends, who just decided it was time to be in hospice. Her cancer had spread throughout her body, and the second round of chemo was not working. My husband was kind enough to drive me three hours through the storms and then stay outside and wait, rather than bothering anyone.
As we drove through the pouring rain, I wondered if anything I could say or do could lessen her pain or give her hope. Would I be intruding on her husband, two daughters, and sisters, who were all there by her side?
“No,” they assured me, “she will be happy that you came.”
Robin was lying in a hospital bed that her husband moved into the dining room. She was breathing with the help of oxygen. A hospice nurse’s aide was there to help. Robin reached out for me, and I gently hugged her and held her hand.
Although she was too weak to turn over or stand up, and pumped up on painkillers, she was lucid. Calmly and in great detail, my friend described her excruciating pain that led to an ambulance trip to the emergency room, emergency surgery, and a week in intensive care. She knew that she was dying, so she made the difficult decision to go into hospice, and she was resigned to that reality. “I am not putting in my contact lenses or my hearing aids – I don’t need them anymore.”
How Our Friendship Started
Robin and I met in college about 50 years ago at a meeting where we helped found Sonoma County Women Against Rape in the 1970s. A nurse started the group and trained us to be rape crisis counselors. Along with a few dedicated college students, we organized and staffed a rape crisis hotline out of our homes and accompanied women of all ages who had been raped to the hospital and court hearings to offer support.
We remained very close friends from that moment on. She attended law school, and I earned my teaching credentials. Over the years, we camped together on the California coast and traveled to Guatemala twice.
Staying Close Across Time and Distance
We never lived in the same town after college, but we stayed in touch. After a few years working as a lawyer, she pursued divinity school and became a Methodist minister, while I became a school principal. We saw each other regularly over the years. While I lived outside the US, we wrote letters to each other describing our loves and the daily dramas of our lives.
When long-distance phone calls became free, we began speaking frequently, and that continued to this day. We shared our long-term relationships, breakups, and marriages – the births of our children, the deaths of our parents, and the many challenges of parenting our children – lots of tears and laughter.
Robin could always make me laugh, even in the worst moments. We both had a few worst moments, including nightmare jobs. We talked each other through those situations. Her husband would laugh and say we were each other’s therapists. Even though she was Methodist and I was Jewish, our spirituality, compassion, and commitment to feminism, social justice, and civil rights were entirely in sync. We always said we would grow old together, and to a degree we did, although losing her came way too soon.
We Had Good Lives
During our final visit, Robin and I agreed that we had had good lives. It did not mean that everything was easy by any means. We discussed the recent past and our many adventures growing up during the 70s.
I brought her a black-and-white photo from 1977, when she visited me during the year I volunteered at an earthquake relief hospital in the Guatemalan highlands. It was a group photo of Robin, my friend Betty, and me with two Cakchiquel women and several children in intricately woven huipiles (blouses). She remembered Betty, and she knew Betty had died a few years prior. “It is strange, she said, that always in a photo there is one person who has died.”
When it came time to leave, we hugged, and each of us said, “I love you.” The next day, her husband texted me that after I left, Robin fell asleep and suddenly woke up, saying, “You need to give Becki something to eat.” Even in her last hours, she thought beyond herself.
Her daughter had noted that sometimes people have a day of clarity right before they die. She didn’t think that was what was happening, nor did I. Robin seemed way too alert and alive. And yet, Robin passed away the following evening. I was grateful to have had that time with her.
The Losses We Go Through
Part of aging is experiencing losses. I recall how a friend of my father’s, who was in his 90s, told me once, “As you hit your 60s, you start losing people who were close to you, then in your 70s, and 80s, more pass away. By your 90s, even fewer people you’ve loved are left.” Now in my 70s, I realize how true that is.
Robin’s passing has reinforced the need to cherish our loved ones, both old and new. She leaves me with fond memories and profound lessons about friendship and love.
Top photo: Robin and Becki at Yosemite in August, 2025.
Time to Reflect:
Have you lost anyone in the past year? Have the losses started to add up? Who do you miss the most?
