Adieu, Jules

Two days ago I learned my friend had died. Julie had been my friend, contemporary, and coworker in the circulation department at a library. We both worked part time in a job well below our abilities but that satisfied the urge to do something, to move, and to earn play money without giving away our lives. And we were part of a very good crew. By the time we left every evening, it was as if the elves had come and cleaned up. Julie, in particular, was a dynamo. So hard as it was to believe that so much good-natured energy resided in that little body, it is harder still to believe it is gone.

We hit it off right away when we met. I was a Cuban from New York and she, an American from Miami, Cuban by association. Many an evening, she tortured me with descriptions of Cuban food we did not have. We spoke the same language of street smarts; we shared the same wicked humor. Unlike me, Julie was ever pleasant, ever helpful, and beloved by the patrons. In fact, the only time I ever witnessed her in a disagreement was with some gentlemen I won't mention, because I don't want to go to jail.

One day, the chronic condition that caused a tumor on her leg was causing her so much pain that she had the growth removed. Then came the news. At age 44 or so, she was told it was malignant and her leg would have to be amputated. So beautiful, vivacious Julie lost her leg. It had also spread. Her husband at the time was pulled aside and told she would not last the year.

But the doctors did not know the Julie we did. She faced the cancer, the way she had faced life. She braved the pain caused by the lost limb, writhing on her floor. She overcame the new disability, lavishing attention on the guide dog she acquired. Somehow, she made it through the death in a motorcycle accident of her only son. In the middle of a divorce when she was diagnosed, she met and married a young man. That, too, turned sour under the weight of her illness. Yet, she was irrepressible.

I want to say that we were close, but I only visited her home once. It was after she became ill. Yet we were close in the way women who've lived hard times are, those that belong to that secret sorority. Somehow, we recognize each other. Julie did not have an easy life, but you would never have guessed.

For four or five years, she held off the inevitable. So when I heard she was in the hospital, other than sending her a card, I did nothing. Julie couldn't, wouldn't die. Then she did.