A friend of mine from Germany, born in Ohio and residing with her husband and 2 children in Freiburg, died during the night yesterday. Her name was Anita.
I got to know Anita through church, which I attended sporadically at first, and then more often as time went on. She and I hit it off because basically, she is the type of person who appears to be on happy pills 24 hours a day and could not resist cracking jokes even during the dullest of moments. This is a very rare type of person to meet in Germany.
Anita sang with me in the choir (they were desperate for male voices and corralled me into it), and though we were not very good musicians, we did our best to keep our spirits up and stay warm somehow, in spite of rehearsing in old drafty and cold German churches (ours was not, but the ones we sang in usually were)
Now Anita is gone and, if I were still living over there, I would certainly miss her companionship and presence.
Since I am not over there, I can't really miss those things but only reminisce instead what might have been.
The feeling left is that I should have been there during these last months as the disease came back and affected her liver and body. But I left that place and there is no going back to what you used to have. My time there was done, at least, it was done in that town.
The worst thing about death is the finality of it all. Anita is gone forever. No dreams remain, no possible plans to make, or happy reunions, or joking about the good old days, when we were young and stupid, or at least adventurous and silly.
The next time I visit Freiburg, it will be a sad occasion. My best friends from there were all friends of Anita.
Moving is hard sometimes.
