A few days ago we lost our dear friend Kimberly in New York.  For many years we lived in the same building on Riverside Drive, and she had a terrace with a view of the Hudson and the GW Bridge.  Huck grew up waving at New Jersey and watching sunsets and city gardening with Kimberly and her beau John, whom Huck nicknamed Coleus because of the abundance of that plant on the terrace. During our last few days in NYC, I requested a final terrace evening, and Kimberly joyfully gave it to me. No longer living at 1380 Riverside, we three took the familiar elevator up to the 16th floor where we’d spent so many hours over the years.  As always, Kimberly and John had the wine flowing and a special bubbly drink for Huck as we reminisced and looked forward to our new life far from the big city.  Kimberly was experiencing intense back pain but still managed to send us off with love, humor and great warmth.  At the end of the night John took the above picture of us.  Within weeks she was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer.

We got the news on Sunday that Kimberly was at the end of her life, and on Monday many of our close friends gathered at her bedside in New York.  Those of us who lived elsewhere were connected through a series of texts and Facebook messages, together sharing story after story of our larger-than-life friend who we were somehow never going to see again.  At least not here on earth.

Huck loves the idea of infinity.  On Saturday he went up to his room and wrote this:

“This moment, right now, so precious,
yet it flies by like a migrating bird.
A moment can be long, or short,
but every infinite moment
all stitched together makes time itself.
What stitches them together?
Truths, lies, thoughts, feelings, questions, secrets, words
and all those random little things are the stitches of time itself.
Time, so infinite, sort of like space, but smaller, yet the same.
For time is one-dimensional,
and one directional,
while space is three dimensional
and has infinite directions.”

Until we meet again, sweet friend.