Back in July my friend Nyia got diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. It was a hard thing to accept, but I figured she is a strong willed woman and she will make it through. Last Tuesday, I found out that she was given just days to live. I rushed to the hospital to spend some time with her. She was not responsive, but I played music for her and talked to her. Wednesday I woke up and drove back over to the hospital. Spent a couple hours with her, once again talking to her, playing music, and massaging her feet, legs, and holding her hand. Two hours after I left, at about 12:45pm I got the horrible news that she took her last breath while her Mom sat with her holding her hand. I had lost one of my best friends of 13 years.
It has been a rough week with ups and downs with many memories both happy and sad between us. I have her to thank for bringing out the crazy side of me, and I have her to thank for meeting the love of my life Terry.
What hurts me the most besides knowing she is no longer with us. Is finding out that she told her Mom that she was scared after they told her she got a staph infection from the port they put in. The infection made its way into her blood. However on the other side, what helps me and others to get through this is to know that she isn’t suffering anymore. She is also now forever reunited with the love of her life (her fiancé, shown in picture). Her fiancé Jeanette unexpectedly passed away last December, just days before Christmas. I know she is in a better place as they say, but my heart wants her here. The last words she told her Brother were, “Trust God”.
We may have fought like a married couple at times Nyia, but I love you and I will forever miss you.
Before we started high school together, my best friend’s mum made a deal with her. She could get her ears pierced if she cut her hair off. All of it. Not a choppy little bob or a small fluffy ‘fro, I’m talking three millimetres short of being monk-level bald. For a few years, Langa was also the only vegetarian in a family of carnivores, so you can imagine that must have been a delightful time. She also went to a boarding school in the mountains. One might think she was going through some sort of eastern spiritual phase at the time, but she definitely played far too many video games for someone on a path to inner peace. Her mum had simply grown tired of the screaming and tears involved whenever Langa’s hair was combed, so she decided that she’d very much like to shave it all off. I think my mum got the idea from them. If Langa could make a deal with her mum, perhaps I would too. I wouldn’t shave my head, of course. I had no intention of having a zuda* again (because for some reason I once asked my dad to cut it all off when I was a kid). There was absolutely no way I would give up the long and straight hair I worked so hard to get. I had it relaxed and treated regularly so that it was always straight and shiny and pretty just like my mum’s hair (although my mum had it a bit easier, her hair is quite cooperative whereas I was born with curls thicker than a wire-scrubber).