A Farewell

I walked up the hill; up the quiet Cole Valley streets in San Francisco; through the chill of the light, Saturday afternoon fog. Claudia had said she wanted to see me. I dressed quickly and ran out of my apartment, not sure why I was running or if I planned to run the whole mile there. I felt as though there wasn't much time. To defy the sense of urgency running circles around me, I stopped at a corner store and ordered a breakfast sandwich. I ate as I walked to the hospital. I remember thinking the sandwich was surprisingly tasty, and that Claudia was waiting for me, trapped in her immobile body, in a hospital bed and too sick to answer her phone herself. I had so much to tell her.
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I wasn't expecting the scene I walked into when I got to her room. Instead of a crippled woman, half conscious and lying back in bed, Claudia sat up- her smile as big and bright as it had always been. For a woman dying of cancer, she sure could pull off a bald head strikingly.
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Relief washed over me. This wouldn't be goodbye. It meant Claudia would live to take more trips around the world, filling up on plateletts along the way, like she was doing now. It meant she would see her 28-year-old son settle into a career, she would meet a future son-in-law if her daughter ever fell in love. It meant she would be around for many more years to share recipes, to have parties and to enjoy and appreciate San Francisco which she was so good at doing.

"Hello," I said as I walked in. 

"Hi, sweetie," she responded. Her best friend, Pat, stood at the end of her bed next to a woman I didn't know. I pulled my bag off and set it on a chair then walked to join the group as they continued the conversation they had been having. 

"Facebook is so evil they won't let you delete your profile completely," Claudia said with a tone of disbelief and anger.

 The woman always loved to bitch. She also always spoke passionately. Nothing and no one was spared from her passion in conversations: an old boss of hers was a "fuck head," her friends were "so lovely. I love love love them," a bottle of wine, a meal, a book, a passing stranger- all of these could easily become targets of her passion. I couldn't help but admire that part of her. Claudia did not lack feeling on many subjects and she was not above emotions.
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I met the woman standing next to Pat. She had raised her children in the same neighborhood as Claudia. Three of us stood at the large windows, looking out over the city. I tried to point out which roof was mine while a nurse changed some of the many bags of liquids draining in and out of Claudia's body. I noticed Claudia's wrists were smaller than I'd ever seen them, skeleton-esque. Then I returned my eyes back to the mob of roofs.
The door opened and a 6-foot, velvet-covered something came through the door, pushed by Claudia's younger sister, Ellen, followed by Ellen's husband.

"You found one!" Pat exclaimed as Ellen rolled it over by a chair and pulled the cover off to reveal the harp underneath.

 For the next 30 minutes we were hypnotized by the sound of the instrument, by the movement of Ellen's fingers across the strings: graceful, soothing and distracting. Convincing us all of the things we wanted to be convinced of, of the contradictions we couldn't stop. Claudia was dying. But here she was alive. She didn't have much time. But she has been fighting so long, what's to say she won't keep fighting. She is suffering. We will suffer if she dies. She can't die. She's going to. Then what? The harp played on.

"Pretty great, huh, kid?" Claudia winked at me from her bed.

"It's amazing," I gushed.

We opened the door and let the sound float through the dimly lit halls of the hospital. A small weapon against the pain and the unknown hovering over the shiny floors.

"This one is for you, Claudia. You'll know it," Ellen said as she began the next piece.

"Do you actually think I was listening to you practice when we were kids?" Claudia responded.

We burst into laughter. Cancer had not taken away Claudia's right to be an older sister. It had not taken her spunk.
Later, I leaned over Claudia, navigating on her laptop, helping her delete an old e-mail account while she told the story of how she met me.

"I hired Michelle when I met her in a bar," she proudly told the room. "She had been drinking in the park all day," she added. "And she had these big eyes," she said, putting her pointer fingers and thumbs together to make circles then holding them up to her eyes. I turned to look at her and our eyes met only a few inches away. She smiled lovingly and pointed at me, "See!"

"There. It's gone. It only took a minute," I said as I walked back to the window after deleting her account. "How long have you been trying to do that?" I asked Claudia and Pat.

"For a while. We couldn't find the settings button," Pat responded with a chuckle.

"See that," Claudia pointed at me again. "That's why I hired her. Give her something and she'll figure it out," she bragged.

"And because of my big eyes," I laughed.

I had known Claudia for more than a year. We had spent a lot of time together at work when she hired me. And when she fell out of remission shortly after and stopped working, I became a regular visitor, a privileged owner of a copy of her apartment keys, a care-taker for a week when she thought it was the end but it wasn't, and a daughter-like figure in her life. She provided me with many fine bottles of wine, advice, and my favorite: her stories of travel, love, romance, family and anything she wanted to tell, which was often everything.
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When she said she was getting tired, I volunteered first to leave, wanting her to rest. "When I go home tomorrow," she said, "You're on the short list of people who get to visit me." I walked over to her bed and leaned down to hug her gently, afraid of pulling important tubes or cords. But she held me close and squeezed me tight and I was surprised by how long she hugged me.

"I love you," I said.

"I love you, too," she responded, hugging me tighter before we pulled apart. Making eye contact, her glossy eyes stayed locked on mine. 

"I'll see you in a few days," I said, then waved, turned and walked out.

On my walk back down the hill, I mentally disciplined myself for being so morbid in having thought my visit was going to be a goodbye. Then I thought about all the reasons I would tell her I was thankful for her. The next day, her daughter arrived back in the country from an overseas assignment and a few days later Claudia died peacefully at home.
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I hadn't gotten to see her again. I hadn't gotten to thank her, hadn't gotten to say the goodbye I thought I would get. But she had. She must have known there would not be another visit.
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It hurt a lot to lose her. It hurts a lot to write about losing her. But there isn't an ounce of me that doesn't believe Saturday was as perfect as any goodbye could have been. It's one more thing to add to my list of reasons I am grateful to Claudia. If anything, I would have held on to her hug for a few more of those last seconds I had with her.
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Goodbye, Claudia. I hope wherever you are, you're raising hell in true you fashion.
I love you for always and for everything.