Saying Goodbye to a Beautiful Friend

It’s been almost a week since Brandy left her body and became one with us all…on the most beautiful moon lit night. She took her last breath with one eye on the beyond and one eye that looked into her mother’s eyes one last time. It was heartbreakingly beautiful…and I felt her there in the room for a time before her spirit continued on… to expand into everything. It was an indescribable and yet perceptible shift in the energy within the space. In my awareness of it, I found I was drawn over to the window, and then couldn’t take my eyes off the moon and the way it not only illuminated all of Seattle, but also my wide open heart.

I met Brandy at work almost 20 years ago. She was this kind woman with a sense of humor that always enjoyed a good double entendre, and had a smile that just lit up her whole face and eyes. Being on the receiving end of one was always a gift. After working together for a couple of years we started hanging out and going for walks at a local park with my pup Keva, and those days and hours solidified our friendship for years to come.

Getting to that level of friendship with Brandy was a triumph. She wasn’t someone who opened up to people easily, or trusted with any kind of abandon. She had been through a lot in her life, but also had a life of blessings too. A Daughter and a Mother who loved her more that my words could ever express, and in later years she gained an actual Dad who she connected with in a way she was never able to with her biological father. We were her circle, the people she let in and entrusted with all of her truths, and I feel lucky to have been counted among them.

She and I went to Zihuatanejo back in 2008, and it was one of the only trips she ever took outside the U.S. I had just lost my father to cancer, and she had been working for almost two years to lose weight and get healthy, it was a celebratory trip for making it through a difficult year. We found an amazing hotel and had the best time. We mostly spent time swimming and sunning ourselves and ventured out into town a couple of times. Juan was always there during the day to bring us whatever we wanted by the pool, and after all these years we never forgot his name because on the hardest of work days we always tried to invoke his sweet presence and his drink tray full of tequila. I think that trip was a favorite memory for both of us.

Brandy later had some health issues but she always made it through, her body never took care of her the way she deserved. We all tried to be there in what ways we could, her daughter Kaleigh being her most devoted nurse. After years since her last issue she started to have a new problem come on. In the beginning, the symptoms weren’t abnormal for her to experience until a couple of months before her diagnosis when they got more intense and scary. She called me on April 8th to let me know that she had cancer and that she was going in for surgery the next week. She had survived so much that I knew she could get through this, I was going to shave off all my hair in solidarity with her, and decided when she was through this, I was going to get her out for another trip because 2008 was so damn long ago….

Three and a half weeks after her surgery, during her healing period before starting treatment, she began experiencing further pain and other symptoms and became concerned so she scheduled an appointment and we drove over to Seattle to see her oncologist. The doctor assured her that she would have a CT scan a couple of days later to look at what was going on, but not to worry because only 1% of patients had this turn out to be a return of the cancer.

On May 14, she let me know that she made the 1%. Turns out, only that percentage of cancer patients get this kind of cancer, and it was the worst. My girl never did anything half assed when it came to illness. After getting her message I started crying because some part of me knew then that she wasn’t going to beat it. I cried most of the weekend and most of the tears were driven from an overwhelming sadness over all the things she had dreamed about that were never going to happen, that she would never get to do.

I bucked up and went to see her at Lauren and Newel’s, her Mom and Dad’s place, and enjoyed our chat but was so sad to see the pain she was dealing with. She and Lauren were determined she was going to make it and I didn’t want to voice my fears or take that hope away from them. They held out that hope all the way to the end, Brandy was determined to LIVE, two-thumbs-up-in-the-air, “let’s do this”!

At the end of May, my husband and I left town for a bit, and though we had planned to be gone a month, some part of me knew I would be coming back sooner. Her Mom called two weeks into our trip to let us know she was starting to have problems, and that the doctors said her body was in the beginning stages of shutting down. We got on the plane the next morning. When I drove up to her Mom and Dad’s house she was standing on the porch waiting for me, and I hugged her and cried because I couldn’t help it. She still was full of hope though. I got to visit with her for a little over an hour that day while she was lucid, and then stayed up with her all the next night so her Mom and Dad could sleep. I read Harry Potter to her, and listened to her mental wanderings…she was so sweet and appreciative that I was there…she was just so…Brandy. I cherish every one of those moments because after that she was over to Virginia Mason Hospital for the next week and a half and it was more difficult to see her.

My last sweet moment with her was when I went over with her Mom and Dad and Kaleigh to visit her, the doctor had called because they didn’t think she would live out the night. I had seen her eyes open a couple of times for people, but I didn’t think she knew I was there. In the end I bent down and whispered in her ear, “Hey Girl” our greeting to each other for the past 20 years, and her eyes opened and she turned toward me with the biggest smile. I hold that moment with me because that was the last time we had that exchange.

She lived two more days, and on the last one I came over to sit and hold vigil with her. I talked to her and sang to her, I held her hand, I cried, I apologized for some of our tougher moments, and told her that she would always be a part of me. I let her know about all the people who had reached out to me whose lives she had touched over the years, and told her of my plan to spread her ashes in all the places she had ever wanted to go. They say hearing is the last thing to go, so I do hope she heard me.

At 10:40 on June 23rd she was gone…in a sense…

What do I mean? My philosophy on death is based on childhood dreams I used to have. I have vivid memories of dying in my dreams, and what would come after was so realistic, that I’m sure in my heart that it is what occurs as we pass on. I remember the sensation of being knocked from my body and rather than everything going dark…everything would instead go white. After a second of awareness I would then feel my soul start to expand unfettered by the body that had held me. In that expansion I could feel that I was becoming part of everything, of all life everywhere…limitless pure love becoming part of IT ALL. The light was so pure and white that when I woke up and opened my eyes to a dark room it would always take me by surprise. If that is death, I have no fear for myself or my loved ones. I mourn the loss and the absence of Brandy’s individual self, in the body that gave me hugs and held my hand when I needed reassurance, but I know in my heart that she is safe and free of all the pain that this life held for her.

What I don’t know for sure is if we get another chance, a rebirth or reincarnation of ourselves down the line. The Dalai Lama is some evidence that this could be true, and if so her Mom and I have a plan for Brandy. It involves her growing up in Scotland with a loving family, and then marrying an amazing man that owns a ranch where she will raise horses and ride them all of her days. She was so passionate about horses her entire life so we both agreed this would be the best life we could wish for her. Her Mom and I talked about it over drinks a few days after she passed, and as I was driving home, I happened to look up and see the names of the movies that were playing at the local drive-in that weekend…both horse movies, one was called Spirit Untamed and the other was called Dream Horse. It could have meant nothing, just two movie titles displayed on a screen, but I sincerely hope that meant more, that our dream for her has a chance of coming true.

I love you girl.