A loss

Young adulthood is a sometimes frantic, sometimes fragile time: finding a life beyond school, getting to know yourself, making new friends while trying to keep old ones, and ultimately finding your voice. Often this is hard, yet sometimes there are bright spots along the way. When I needed one very much, I found a bright spot in a friend's mother.

A few words came to mind quickly as I tried to think how best to describe the friend we have lost: genuine, full of life, caring, enthusiastic, cute. She loved family and friends, music and art, food and travel. Life was a bright and colorful adventure, if you only looked.

She had an absolute and unerring ability to find something positive in almost everything and everyone. Had she worked in politics, she could have mastered the art of "spinning" something to the best possible interpretation. Fortunately, for those of us who called her a friend, she focused her natural enthusiasm toward our lives. That "Pollyanna" viewpoint was even infectious; it was hard to stay down for long when she kept pointing out the silver linings you had missed.

I think what I will remember most is T's delight with life. She smiled readily, and easily befriended virtually everyone around her. Age did not matter, perhaps because she refused to observe her own age. Her spirit remained young, even as her body aged. She befriended young and old with equal relish, and both young and more senior friends will mourn her loss.