On Loss

When my mother turned 35, two friends honored her with a hand-delivered homemade mashed potato ice cream sundae.  My mother was a dieting aficionado. Heralded through my childhood how she only weighed 104 pounds when she gave birth to me, mashed potatoes with butter could bring her to her knees despite TAB, chewing Dentyne and smoking.  Thirty-five seemed insurmountably old to her; some kind friends surprised with a delightfully caloric concoction with food colored dyed scoops.  She devoured the treat and rued each bite.

Funny how 34 years later, most my pals consider her a young mom in comparison.  She is 69.  I am 45 and in my mind's eye I still feel the soul of the 20 something.

So, 45 is too young to die.

It is not okay universe to take away a tender hearted mother and friend and wife.

How petty worrying about 35 seems by comparison.

Fucking cancer.

Click to listen and then keep reading.

My heart is crushed with the devastating news that my lovely friend Robin Garthright Bunster died on Saturday, April 20th.  Only recently diagnosed with kidney cancer, she has left our world, her loving husband Mark, sweet son Max, and darling daughter Ann.  Her son was born 9 days before Dell.  We developed a mom's morning group; Dell and Max took to each other like bees to honey.  We both suffered an early pregnancy loss, and then carried her number 2 and my number 3 to term within weeks of each other. 

Sometimes, friendships born in college and high school can survive the blessed, easiness of life which allows them to develop.  But a friendship born out of mothering which transcends the toddler years is almost miraculous because it nurtured during such transformation.  Mothering or parenting is an act of selflessness.  David Foster Wallace identified for millennials that the struggle with adulthood was looking beyond oneself, one's natural default setting set to "me" needs to go beyond the self.  Mothering is the penultimate challenge to push one's id to other and finding and maintaining a friendship that becomes a soul friend on life's journey seems almost to unreal to imagine. 

There are so many road blocks to successful friends with young children.  Parenting styles can clash.  Children can grow apart.  Women can change.  Marriages can change.  Hopes and lost dreams can change. Robin and I survived.  We shared an intense belief that family is critical.  We both had childhoods that were not "Ozzie and Harriet,"  yet we both found models of how family could be.

We both found men who adored us as we were and who liked each other.  Mark and Robin complimented one another as one only hopes to find.  Her light and laughter to his reason and deep thought.  They shared passion for music, a love of the off beat, and their kids. 

Witnessing continued love is a gift.  I was fortunate to be in Portland in October of 2012 and get to see the home they established there.  Their love and laughter still binding.  Their appetite for fun and delicious unabiding.  What makes the heart ache is the knowledge that time has ended as it was.  The self they developed is now forced to step beyond and create anew.  We, their friends, need to love and guide them through this unfolding as Robin's gift was the glue.  We, their friends, need to not mourn our loss but celebrate the beauty with which Robin greeted the day; her intense belief despite gnawings of occasional doubt we will all be okay.  We will form a family.  We will honor each other.

Her sisters Katie and Blair know.  They have lived with her loving them always.  Robin's ears and hearts listening.  Ed and Sally knew in Robin a love that would climb the mountain with them and manage coming down the other-side as well.

Max and Annie there are wonderful stories which you should ask to hear when you want to listen.  The wonder-mama whose sweetness had few bounds is someone whose greatness we want to share with you.  Wrap yourself in her memories.  Know that she loved you immediately, powerful love.  She determined that your family would be loving and just and kind.  May you at least sense that.

Mark, passion and curiosity drive much of your world view.  You are such a compassionate soul.  Let us be here in the future as you grieve. I will not be tired of talking about Robin and her beauty and gifts.

Robin was a phenomenal woman:

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Maya Angelou