Essay: For Becky

My friend Becky liked to say that fall in Alaska is the last week of September. She’ll miss it this year. Becky died on August 2, after courageously living for seven years with a form of ovarian cancer.

Like the leaves that change color and fall too fast this far north, Becky taught me about holding on and letting go, and about savoring the beauty in between.

Here’s what Becky hung on to: good recipes, dozens of friends from various parts of her life and a lot of stuff in her house that she might need later or was saving to give to someone else. It was all part of her charm. Becky was the friend who always called on your birthday, asked questions about your life and gave great tips on things like where to get a cheap-but-good Chardonnay (Costco) and healthy-but-good chicken nuggets for my kids (also Costco). She was a self-described maven who meticulously researched and tried out new products, restaurants and, eventually cancer treatments, to find the best. It was easy to hang on to Becky, because once you were her friend, she hung on to you, too.

Becky also hung on to her faith. Raised as pastor’s kid in Oklahoma, she was steeped in the Lutheran tradition. She loved 4-part harmony, a well-written sermon, boisterous Easter hymns and resting in the care of a loving God. Becky clung to her faith through the ups and downs of her cancer treatment. Her faith brought her considerable comfort in the face of the unknown. She sang in the choir until she could not. She attended church even when she needed a walker. When she couldn’t be there, she watched on Zoom and made comments in the chat.

A few months before her death, Becky invited me out to lunch at a hole-in-the-wall sushi place where I had never been. She ordered her favorite dish and took the leftovers home in her own Tupperware. She mused about hospice and wondered how she’d know when the time was right. She also told me about her journey toward acceptance of death. I love living, she said, I just love it. Her voice wavered just the tiniest bit, and added: But then I think about how short my life is compared to all eternity with God. Becky showed us how to hold on. She was also teaching us how to let go.

Becky was forced to let go of so much in the last years and months of her life – travel, mobility, self-sufficiency, clear speech and more. Her brother spoke at her funeral and said that in her last month of life, Becky confided that she did not know how to die. Who of us really knows? It is the ultimate mystery.

In my before-kids phase of life, Becky and I had a little tradition every Good Friday. I think she started this with a different friend years before, but somehow I was the lucky inheritor. For many years on Good Friday, she invited me to her home after we attended Good Friday church services at our respective churches. On this liturgical night of sorrows, Becky opened a bottle of good red wine and served something with chocolate (usually a rich brownie). We sat together on her sofa and chatted and laughed and probably cried at some point. To me it was a powerful theological statement: here was a faith so deep that on the night marking death and sorrow, Becky chose to delight in the good things in this life – not as a denial of death but because of her sturdy belief in the God who would hold her in the life to come. There can be sweetness and joy even in the darkest hours, particularly when you are with someone you love.

I wasn’t ready to let Becky go. She was a friend, mentor, honorary auntie to my kids and a role model in faith and life. We’ve had some bluebird autumn days lately and she would have loved to see them, even if just through the window. I thought of her when I made salmon chowder last week, a recipe she always praised. It was the last meal I made for her before she died. I still have the bulletin from her memorial service on the dash of my car. I’m not ready to file that away somewhere else, either.

There’s no tidy end for the story of grief, though anyone who knows its contours knows it changes over time. I’m not ready to let Becky go, and I won’t be ready to see the last of the leaves fall, either. I do trust that those fallen leaves nurture the earth and other living things, as Becky nurtured me and so many others. Life goes on and it is beautiful and terrible, as the poet Rumi says, but you just keep going.

The skies were clear today and I paused to look, really look, at the beauty of the vibrant yellow birch leaves against the cerulean sky. For a moment, I savored something exquisite and good, even in the midst of sadness.