REQUIEM FOR A FRIEND

I don't know how one goes about saying good-bye to a good friend. In the end, you're always left feeling cheated out of all the time you thought you would have had together- to say the things you would have liked to have said to her, and to have spent enough quality time together, if only you knew. 

I met Tina about five years ago, shortly after she moved here from the East Coast. I was a fairly recent transplant from New York, who had moved just two years earlier to San Francisco to begin my law practice. On the surface, we seemed to have a lot in common: both of us were professional, Ivy League educated, single, Asian women in our thirties, ready to embark on the next and hopefully noteworthy chapter of our lives in this new found home of ours, California. 

I recall long telephone conversations with Tina, when we shared things about our respective backgrounds, our common values and different hopes and dreams for the future. But as we got to know one another better, it became apparent how really different we were. Most notably, Tina was from the suburbs of Connecticut, or as I liked to call it, "The Country." And I was, incurably, a New York City born and bred urbanite, who was lost outside of a major city like San Francisco. It became a running joke between us, with Tina mocking my apparent inability to find my way out of THE CITY and my poking fun at her life in PLEASANTVILLE, another way I liked to refer to the suburbs. In many ways, we couldn't have been more different. But these differences never stopped us from being friends and growing closer over time.

Although the distance between our homes and the demands of my work often prevented us from getting together on a regular basis, whenever I ventured into the Burbs, Tina and I would try to catch up with one another over ice cream, which she knew was my favorite treat. Tina was always a fairly private person, understated and reserved, carefully cherry picking friends with whom she would share personal details with. She was never one to waste a lot of time superficially collecting acquaintances, only to indulge in idle and meaningless chatter. Over time, I came to know her well and appreciate what a kind, sincere and considerate person she was.

Perhaps because we couldn't get together on a regular basis, that when we did have an opportunity to speak, our conversations were usually long and remarkably deep. Our discussions were like periodic markers of our lives, that took note of major strides and setbacks in our lives, and by which we could calibrate the progress of our time spent here in California.

Just weeks before her tragic death, I told Tina that I received a job offer here in Silicon Valley which would have required me to relocate to the suburbs, and yet incredibly enough, I was seriously considering accepting it. However, my decision hinged on my ability to find a place to live close by to work, which was no easy feat, with the critical shortage of housing in the Valley. Knowing that I had the worst case of "suburbia phobia", Tina immediately offered to give me a guided tour of the area so that I could familiarize myself with the place that I had for so long mocked and quite frankly, feared living in. 

We spent an entire afternoon together, first lunching together at a restaurant of her choice, next visiting with our mutual friend Angie, and then dropping in on my good friend Ed, who now lives in her neighborhood. And for the rest of that afternoon, Tina took me through the paces-like any good twelve-step program for anyone who has ever had to conquer any deep-seated fear. Tina started by showing me the best route to take to my new job, and then she suggested that we drive around various different neighborhoods so that I could get a feel for each of them. I was afraid to tell her that they all looked pretty much the same to me. 

As we drove all around the South Bay that day, we had a chance to talk and catch up with one another. We discussed her recent birthday, one that she did not particularly care to celebrate, despite the insistence of her friends. She was now one year closer to her milestone 40th. We talked about the challenges that still lay ahead of each of us and she shared with me how much she looked forward to having a family of her own one day. We had a genuine and heartfelt conversation about things that neither one of us readily shared with many others. 

As we talked, I remember thinking to myself that Tina was like the perfect pillar of stability, having lived in the suburbs her entire life, and having worked at the same company, IBM, for the last twelve years. Perhaps it was her remarkable stability that always made it so easy for me to talk to her, despite any long lapses in time that we spent apart. 

Her steady nature was such a contrast to mine. I was about to start my fourth job in five years and was really bracing myself for the upcoming (and traumatic) move to the suburbs. 

Tina was quite dubious that I could really make the transition. She kept shaking her head, and saying over and over again, "Now, this I got to see-Jane Kow is finally moving to the suburbs. I just can't believe it. I'll believe it when I see it." 

Still, I enjoyed the time that we spent together that day and thanked her for taking the time to show me around. I just hope that she now knows how much I appreciated her efforts that day to gently acclimate me to life in the suburbs.

Over the next two weeks, I got together with her and Angie on two other occasions. The three of us had brunch just before I started my new job, and then the very last time I saw her was over dinner my first week at my new job and the week before she took her fateful trip. Tina told Angie and me that she was looking forward to traveling with her father and her aunt, to visit for the first time, her ancestral home in Taiwan. I recall saying to her that we would see her when she returned from her trip and that I was planning to have a party to celebrate my new job and successful transition to life in "Pleasantville" when she returned. (After all, this was going to be my first step towards overcoming my long standing fear of the burbs and proving to her that I was capable of making the transition.)

I assumed that she knew that I was looking forward to seeing her more regularly, now that I was finally living in her neck of the woods-i.e., the same area code. This notion seemed so plainly obvious that I don't think that I expressed it to her, although I now wish that I did. There are a lot of things I wish I had said to her, if only I knew.

It's strange now to think of how you say to your friends who are leaving for a trip or vacation, "take care and have a safe trip," but you never really think that it's going to be the very last thing you'll ever say to them. Of course, you mean what you say, but you have every expectation that they'll return to you, whole, safe and sound. 

And so here I am now living in the suburbs, without my friend Tina. I can't tell you how often I think of her and how a part of me is still waiting for her to return from her trip so that I can share this experience with her. If she were here now, I'd want to show her that despite all of my fears, I was capable of making the transition, of being the same neurotic New Yorker, only now with a different address, closer to hers. I'd also drag her up to the City on weekends to show her what she had been missing out on all these years. There would be more conversations over ice cream, tours of the neighborhood, shopping (a favorite pastime of hers), movies, parties, concerts, and the rest of our lives together, as good friends and neighbors. 

Tina, the suburbs will never be the same without you here. I will miss you always.


Your (Urban) Friend Forever,
Jane Kow

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