Chronicling a friendship

Soon after my friend Cissy died, her brother Richard gave me a pile of photos he had found among her things that capture some of the good times we had together, now more precious than ever.
     I flipped through them at the time and decided to put them in an album at a later date, when it wasn’t so painful. Yesterday was the day.
     There are multiple shots taken at her famous annual Derby parties – some with me and my late husband Jim, at least one with Rick and some with just Cissy and me. We are younger and older, thinner and fatter, my hair is long and frizzy or short and banged, but they all have one thing in common: Everyone is smiling.
     There’s the comforting shot of Cissy, me and our friend Beth Lovering, taken when the three of us spent a weekend in Ogunquit, Maine, as we stood in front of a municipal garbage pail with the word “forgiveness” inexplicably stamped on the metal.
     But by far the most are from our many camping trips Cissy and I took together – at a remote site on Lake Umbagog, for one, but most at a campground on Orrs Island, Maine, where we would slip away for a traditional lobster, clam and hot dog feast on “Moby Deck” (which, of course, we called something more irreverent) at a Bailey Island restaurant.
     There are none from our last camping trip, which took place last summer at Pawtuckaway State Park in New Hampshire, and which held some moments of sadness. Cissy, struggling with severe arthritis, had difficulty navigating her inflatable kayak and announced at the end of our short paddle that it was probably the last time she would use it. Little did we know what those words portended.
     I am reminded of a striking line from the wonderful movie “Boys on the Side” where a central character, having experienced a loss, says, “You never know the last time you sleep with somebody it's the last time.”
     You never know the last time you camp with someone it’s the last time. Or the last time you have dinner. Or the last time you have a casual conversation on the phone.
     Would we want to know? Would it make those last encounters even sweeter or unbearably sad? Or, somewhere in the back of our minds, do we sense the fragility of the moment anyway?
     I don’t know. But I know that, after looking at photos and remembering good times, friendship never really ends.