You Will Be Missed, Cici

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

"Our most difficult task as a friend 

is to offer understanding when we don't understand." 

 ~Robert Brault 

It's taken me all week to start this Blog, and even now I'm not really sure how to begin......

Her name is Cici.  She and I have had many a laugh over the fact we don't really know how we know each other.....we just do.  Over the years, we would run into each other around town, hug and ask how the other was doing....all the while wondering in our heads how we knew each other.  I just figured she was one of those angels God drops into your life because He knew you needed them.

As time went by, our friendship grew.   She introduced me to her Women's Bible Study group and afterwards, we would eagerly grab a bite to eat and catch up on each others life.  Many times, we fought for air-space as we were both talking at the same time, picking the brain of the other.  Although Cici was much more the intellectual than I, she would lower her intellect just for me so we can communicate on the same level.  

The last few years have been difficult ones for Cici.  Although it wasn't always obvious, she was struggling.  A troublesome marriage; problems at work.......family relationships that were strained....you know; things that most of us deal with at one time or another.....seemed to plague her all at the same time.  And hard as she tried, she couldn't seem to move past them.

And then I received the call this weekend......

Cici had taken her own life.  As she said in a note attached to the poem below that she mailed to me hours before ending her life,  "How blessed I have been to know you, precious friend!  May God forever bless you!!  I am just in too much pain."  Love Cici.  And with that, she included her own obituary.

PARTING

On crowded strees, in busy mart,

When from our dearest friends we part,

An optimism fills the heart

Than which there is no greater;

There is no tinge of sorrow then - 

We know full well we'll meet again,

It may be soon -- we know not when - 

"Well, so-long -- see you later!"

How casually the words are said!

And still before the day is sped

The one of us may yet be dead,

For Death's a stern Dictator;

But cheerfully we met and part,

On crowded street, in busy mart,

And voice the hope that's in our heart - 

"Well, so-long -- see you later!"

It cannot be that Death's the end,

For somewhere just around the bend

I'll meet with you again, my friend,

And join our kind Creator;

So when my Summons comes some day,

Don't grieve that I am called away,

Just clasp me by the hand and say --

"Well, so-long -- see you later!"

Sleep tight, my dear friend.
I'll see you in the morning.....