An Old Friend

She was always glad to see me. The day might be sunny, stormy, dismal or freezing, it never affected her mood, as far as I could know what her mood might be. While I have too often sensed others scrutinizing my looks and criticizing my opinions: “Did she comb her hair? Where did she come up with that idea?,” she never made me feel inadequate, unloved or lacking. She took me exactly as I was. Always on her face was pure joy when she saw me. A bad day would turn on her greeting me and I felt completely loved once more.

She came to us when she was so very young and from day one brought cheer, energy and her fair share of mischief into our lives. Yes, she kept us on her toes and it was always worth it for the reward: a look of pure love and her soft presence.

She grew up with the children and when the youngest child entered the teen years, she always knew when he was troubled, felled by all the usual teenage angst.  Some days I would come home from work to find my son lying with her, side by side on the floor. No words, just her gentle, comforting presence: “I’m here, everything will be okay.”

Later, when that young boy had graduated from high school and was at home over a mid-semester weekend break, we came downstairs in the morning and saw that she hadn’t got up. We weren’t too surprised as over the past few weeks, her hips had become much weaker. That day, though, we knew. No one had to tell us. She told us with her eyes.  It was time, a time we knew would come but hoped it never would.

“Do you want to come with us?” I asked my son. He shook his head and with one last hug went back upstairs. Later, after, my husband went into the shed to get the shovel, we notified the older children who came back from work for the ceremony in our backyard. As we headed outside to the garden, my son, the small boy who had been her childhood companion, now a lean six-footer, turned to me with tears in his eyes and said “Well, Mom, I guess I’m not a kid anymore.”

Her name was Topaz.