Lunch With Friends

I had lunch with my sister and one of her longtime friends who eventually became one of my friends years ago, although after we all married we traveled different paths and lost contact with each other.  It was nice to reconnect during lunch and a glass of wine and dessert of course.  Now I'll have to starve myself for 2 weeks to make up for the lapse of will power.  But it was great talking and catching up.  Her husband had died a few years ago and she has had some other tragic events.  It was hard to know what to say, but we managed to get past the awkward moments.  It's interesting because she doesn't seem very different from the person I knew in high school.  Some different interests, more confidence, but really the same sweet person with a few more worries and some sad issues. I guess we'd all fit  that last part of the description. But it was good and then we exchanged ph numbers and said good bye.  For a while I had a bit of a melancholy feeling then.  It seems that memories of the past even the good ones are also a reminder that time is moving forward and the changes continue and aren't reversible as we move toward the ultimate ending that no one ever wants to talk about.
As a nurse I've had some experiences with death and the only way to get through it is to talk about it: it's effect on one, the sadness we feel, what happenes next, how do we move on.  There are no right answers only listening to the questions, acknowledging the sadness and pain and offering support. Each of has to find our way through a sad or tragic event.  I'm still working on my sad event.  (I'll try for a more upbeat entry next time)