Dear Deanna,

Yesterday an email popped up in my inbox. “Deanna,” it said. A wave of guilt swamped me. Deanna was a long-time friend. I had been her reader my senior year in college. I had fallen in love with her savage wit, her brilliant mind, and her kind heart. We remained friends after graduation. When we both lived in LA we saw each other often. We once nearly got kicked out of church because Deanna had brought a book–101 Things to do During a Dull Sermon–and we got to reading it and laughing. We saw the Messiah together, and then my car died and I had to stay the night with her. We went to the beach where it turned out Deanna couldn’t go into the water because she was, as she put it, “painting roses” whenever she sat down.

Life was hard for Deanna–I’ve written about her here before. She battled mental illness and was eventually institutionalized in another state. Still, our friendship survived. We spoke often by telephone, nurturing our friendship with laughter and memories. I wrote her a book. It had pictures in it of our college friends, the campus, the town. It held funny stories of adventures we’d shared. We remained good friends.

Her illness progressed. Our phone calls continued, but while I still shared memories and funny stories, Deanna shared the fears and delusions that increasingly populated her inner landscape. I learned that telling her those fears weren’t real wasn’t helpful or productive. I learned instead to listen for the very real pain that had given rise to those fears, and speak to that instead. And I learned that Deanna and I were to remain friends I was going to have to leave my world and travel with her in hers.

When she feared being tried for mass murder in a McDonalds I assured her that the judge would see she wasn’t that kind of person, and if he didn’t see Deanna should call me, and I would be her character witness. And she was comforted. When she told me, voice trembling, that President Bush had decided she had to go to Afghanistan and hunt down Osama bin Laden, I told her to let me know when her orders came through, and I would go with her.

And then suddenly we were laughing, deep belly laughs like we had laughed back in college, at the thought of two menopausal women, one a paranoid schizophrenic, one chronically depressed, being armed and turned loose and left to their own devices in a war zone. “The country won’t be safe from us,” Deanna chortled. It was the last time I heard her laugh.

Her condition deteriorated. She could no longer speak, but she listened when I called, and made soft chuckling sounds. And then I stopped calling. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d kept calling and calling, and giving her my memories when hers failed her, but I didn’t. I got busy. It was hard to sustain our friendship. It was hard to remember that Deanna was still there.

I got a call from the care center. Deanna had read the book I made her until it fell apart. “She’s just loved it to pieces,” the nurse said. I sent two more copies, asking the caregivers to give her one and keep the second in reserve–and to let me know when the first wore out, so she’d always have a copy. I started calling again.

And then I stopped again. Increasingly, Deanna wasn’t able to receive calls. It made a decent excuse. The reality is probably that it was hard to come up with conversation. She started handing the phone back to the caregiver mid-conversation. They had changed her meds and she could talk a bit sometimes, but the fog was closing in. Her world had become the care center. I was no longer sure she even remembered me. And slowly the deterioration advanced.

It had been months since I’d last talked to her, perhaps a year, when I got the email yesterday. “Deanna’s failing,” it said. “She hasn’t eaten or drunk anything for several days. She can’t get out of bed. She can’t feed herself. It won’t be long.” It turned out that she had had COVID-19, but had beaten it.

And then another email popped up. “Deanna died this morning.”

And I’ve been sitting here ever since, thinking of all our friendship sustained, and how in the end I failed. I stopped calling, even though I had made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t do that–that wherever Deanna’s illness took her, I would go there too, because we were good friends.

Sustaining a friendship with a person who does not share your reality can be very, very hard. It’s a test that didn’t show me in a particularly good light. But here’s the thing. Deanna and I were the kind of friends who, no matter the time lapse, could pick up a phone and a conversation as if we had just spoken minutes ago.

So Deanna is dead, having left me with one final lesson–it’s easy to make the noble promises. It’s a lot harder to keep them, particularly when the keeping extends for decades. But here’s another lesson, and another gift–because I can see Deanna in my mind’s eye, and I can hear her voice, laughing, and telling me not to worry, that we’re talking now, and do I know what’s happening in her life?

Deanna was my friend. Deanna is my friend. Even death can’t change that. So, Deanna, one more time…

How’s it going? Where are you now? What’s happening? I keep thinking of you and me, in that little office, reading Woody Allen and looking at Edward Gorey cartoons and laughing our heads off. I can smell the musty air. I remember the fish poster you got me. I’ve incorporated my business, and The Boy and I doing really well. I need a good proofreader, if you’re feeling better. I’m worried about having to teach in a closed classroom with COVID-19. I’ve got the guts for another book for you–it’s about Portland. I know you’re going to like it. Well, I guess I’d better go–I know you’ve got a lot going on. Take care. I love you. Talk to you soon…