Funeral For A Friend

I don’t know how much I can or will write on this, and most of it won’t be coherent. Forgive me in advance. My friend Dianne West passed away this morning, unexpectedly. She was suddenly hospitalized in the first part of the year, with pain in her legs, and what we thought was a temporary setback turned into 6 agonizing months. First hip repair, then physical rehab, then a setback infection, and more rehab, and another infection, and then another, and another.

I just talked to her last night. She told me she thought I was put in the world to help people, and told me I was a good man. We were sharing our struggles, as we often did, she trying valiantly to regain her health and to manage her problems living alone with an adult autistic son and with her own physical disability, me with my own struggles.

I will never again feel a sense of worry, and just pick up the phone to call Dianne to have her say, “Oh Dean, I’m so glad you called,” and have her pour out her frustrations on me, knowing I could take it, and be strengthened by knowing I could help someone who needed it. Or have her tell me she wanted a hamburger, or needed something from the store, and me hop in the car and just go get it for her because no one else could. Her eldest son lived too far away, and her youngest, the autistic one, unable to drive.

I will never again feel depressed and uncertain what to do, miserable and afraid for my kids or my future, and call to have her listen to me, and give me sound advice, and reassurance that I was doing the right thing–or warning me that I might not be doing the right thing, and tell me what maybe I should do instead. Or telling me what to look out for with an autistic child, what to expect, including how to expect the unexpected, and how to handle other people. How to deal with an older non-autistic teenager–she reminded me endlessly how badly he would need me in the coming years. She would endlessly remind me of what was important, and how important I was to both those kids and should never, ever, ever, ever give up in despair.

Or just have her tell me how happy she was to hear from me, and talk to me about… well, anything. We could talk about anything. Religion. History. Medicine. Politics. Raising children. Interesting food. Travel. Nature. Good books. What made the world an interesting place.

I was helping her do what she needed to file legal paperwork for her youngest son, and trying to help get her home ready for when she would return. She even asked me, the last time we spoke, if I would be willing to be a guardian for her son in case anything happened to her, and I said I would think about it strongly and get back to her. I don’t think she told anyone in the family, so it’s probably pointless to bring it up, although now I’m very worried about her son Jeffy, an adult autistic person who needs help.

We were thinking she would be returning within the next few weeks, she’d made amazing progress, just amazing really after all she’d been through. Then last week her own mother died, and she checked out of the nursing facility briefly to attend the funeral from a wheelchair, late in the week (Wednesday or Thursday I think).

I think something in her broke; she was calm, she knew her mother was dying and they had never had a close relationship anyway–but she came down with an infection within days and was dead by this morning.

I just talked to her. I just talked to her.

I feel very, very lonely. And as is the case sometimes, even though it’s not right, I’m actually angry with her. Damn it Dianne, did you have to die NOW?!?

She was a retired social worker. She was a single mom who raised two boys by herself, in an era where that was simply unheard of. She was amazingly strong, putting herself through college and supporting herself without support or presence of either boys’ father. She made her own way, always, asking for nothing but a sympathetic ear now and then from friends, and always willing to give one in return.

She was trapped alone in that nursing facility, with only a few family and friends to visit now and then. Trapped there for over 6 months when she thought it was just going to be a few days. Unable to leave, unable to afford to make many outgoing phone calls because of ridiculous hospital phone charges she couldn’t afford. Stuck in a sub-acute care facility almost like a prison, because the hospital said she couldn’t go home but didn’t have room for her.

But I found out they had wifi, and members of this blog community helped me cobble together a laptop for her, and it got her back on Facebook and got her back to her email and she was able to contact her friends in the outside world and play her Facebook games, her Farmville and her fish tank and her virtual garden and such, and now I know–it made the last four months of her life less cold lonely and miserable, and I’m convinced probably extended her life. She had a purpose, she had connections, she could do research on things she needed to get done. The hospital charged insane phone rates, but she could email us, she could Facebook us, she could ask us to call and we could, or we could just send notes.

She was making plans to start an accounting business. She had an accounting degree in addition to the social work degree. And once she got things in order for her son, she was making plans to start that business, and I was going to help her on the computer end to make that happen.

She could have been trapped, but thanks to the internet and the generosity of strangers, she could get out and get connected and think about the future. I think of it–notes to an old lady suddenly and unexpectedly dying a nursing home, no longer really alone. Because of that. Thank you guys so much for that.

God damn it Dianne. I miss you.

The lyrics to this don’t really fit, but the feeling does:

She was one of the best friends, advisors, and confidants I ever had. God bless her.