By Eleanor Kazdan, August 29, 2019 — This morning I decided to go through some boxes of old stuff in my basement, which has once again become cluttered. It had apparently been a long time as the boxes were covered with dust. The first box I pulled out was full of old letters, many from the 1970s. [There were] long and detailed letters, some from friends I barely remembered. Scanning some of them I realized that I had touched many people’s lives. And I also realized that not all friendships last forever, as intense and special as they seem at the time. Some of my friends had written extensively, so I organized these letters in piles by name Elaine, Coco, Kathy.
Kathy had written me a mountain of letters from home, trips, and her college year aboard in France. I was overwhelmed by her love. And overwhelmed by sadness. Kathy died 30 years ago. She left me so much in her letters. We became friends at summer camp when we were 15. At age 19 we took our first trip to Europe together. We stayed close through moves to other cities.
When we were 32 Kathy found a lump in her breast. Her doctor told her she was too young to have breast cancer. A year later she finally went for tests and found out it was an aggressive tumor. I was blessed to have Kathy for another 7 years.
Now she lives on in my memory and inside an old dusty box.