Time is Fleeting

Three years ago today I got a call I was dreading. The week before my dear friend Stori had suffered a traumatic head injury while riding her horse. Her sister Lilea first altered me. I talked with John, Stori’s husband, it was not looking good, but with each subsequent day I hoped that meant she might recover. She did not.

Since Stori’s untimely passing I have also lost two other friends, exactly my age, who left us much too soon, Hugh and Holley.

I have known Stori since we were 16. We were best friends in boarding school and through all the years remained close despite the physical distance. I was friends with Hugh since we were 18. He was the comical leader of our very small tight knit group of college friends, who I am still stitched together with. I have known Holley since the first year we moved to Durham 32 years ago, although we are certain our paths passed while we both lived in Washington DC in our twenties.

I see these friends in my dreams, so vividly I awake with the feeling that they are still with me and always will be. You just don’t think that a life long friend will no longer be your life long friend. But they are.

I have had a friend stop being my friend and that is terrible. But when that happened I really did stop thinking about them the same way. The relationship was over. When you lose a friend to death, even when you know it was coming, as was the case for Holley, your relationship with them does not end.

So today I honor Stori’s life. She left a wonderful daughter Sam. Sadly her husband John passed less than two years after Stori, also from a fall. You just don’t know how much time you have with the people you love. Make all the time you do have count. Stori knew that I loved her. We saw each other and talked often enough that she was never in doubt of my affection and dedication to her. For that I am at peace. I know I’ll see her in my dreams.