I really don’t know how tall she was, but if it was more than five feet, that would be a stretch. What size dress did she wear? Well, she did purchase some dresses in a size 1 and then have them taken in. She bought her jeans in the children’s department. She always looked perfectly attired, perfectly groomed.
I looked like an unkempt Godzilla next to her.
She was, by any measure, one of the strongest human beings I have ever known.
I met Linda, oh, how many years ago? Was it 40? I think probably more, but time slips into itself and I can’t remember. I do remember clearly asking her where she got her hair done. I envied it. It always looked like the hair you see on shampoo commercials – shiny, soft curls that framed her tiny but very attractive face.
Somewhere during our first friend years she married Neal, a sweet, caring, warm and very funny guy.
Both Linda and Neal were, by any measure, gregarious. They had baskets and baskets of friends with whom they shared their lives. These friendships were as strong as Linda and as important.
Still, if you looked at Linda’s life, it was not easy. Before Neal, there was a spouse from whom she was divorced. Linda became the sole support of herself and her daughter. When she married Neal, he became the only father to Linda’s little girl. They built a strong family.
How many years ago was she diagnosed with cancer? Thirty? I’m not sure. What I do know is that her local doctors couldn’t find the cancer … and told her to get her affairs in order. At MD Anderson in Texas, the doctors found the cancer and treated it. She was cancer free but left with significant physical challenges because of the treatment. Her loyal friends stepped up and, while she was in Texas, took turns going to spend a week at a time with her.
Linda, Mary, a mutual friend and I would, for many years, get together once a month for lunch. We aged together, shared our good and bad times over bowls of lentil soup at Asti’s.
The cancer came back a few years ago and, this time, the complications of the surgery were draconian. Instead of a month, Linda and Neal spent six months there.
Linda came home with a tracheostomy. Despite some rather awful experiences with the local health providers, Linda marshalled on, this time with a feeding tube and even more determination to survive and thrive.
Then, Neal got sick. Neal got sicker, the purported pinched nerve in his neck was now attributed to ALS. Within a year, he died. We were all in disbelief.
Linda took it all in stride. She made the most of an exceptionally difficult situation. She even went to Florida for a while to spend time with some of those same friends who went to Texas, suffering, even in the sunshine, with multiple hospitalizations for pneumonia.
Linda came home, struggled through more hospitalizations, until she fell and broke her hip.
I didn’t know that she was sick, nor did Mary. We were waiting for her to come home to plan some visits.
We both read her obituary with shock. Not Linda?
We went to her funeral, so sad to have missed saying goodbye, sharing our friendship one last time. Her daughter told us that she was at peace, saying that she had done what she planned because she had lived long enough for her grandsons to remember her, that it was time to go home to be with her mother.
Holding hands, we approached the coffin in tears. At the edge of her casket we stopped crying.
Linda had directed that pictures of scantily dressed attractive men, hunks in other words, be placed along the back wall of her casket. She had, according to her daughter discussed the possibility of being buried in her swimsuit.
Linda, our wonderful friend, had the last laugh with us.
Ann Ferro is a mother, a grandmother and a retired social studies teacher. While still figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up, she lives in Marcellus with lots of books, a spouse and a large orange cat.