My Friend Doris

My friend Doris died last night. She was 100 years old…or maybe not quite, but pretty close. I think she was the same age as my mother, although she would never, ever tell. Nor did I ask. Like all great ladies, Doris had her secret ways (after Albert Finney in Skyfall).

I loved Doris. She loved me. She was not a surrogate mother to me or anything, but I counted her friendship one of the joys of my life. Not that we saw each other all that much. I wrote her about once-a-month, always included pictures of my granddaughter Eleanor. She wrote back in a tight cursive, her brief notes more disjointed and increasingly illegible in recent months.

Whenever I visited her in Highlands, which was a couple of times a year, I would go into her apartment and see some of the pictures I had sent to her, framed, set here and there.  Apparently, she considered me something of a surrogate son, and Eleanor her own—though, sadly, the two never had a chance to meet.

When first I met Doris she was a wealthy widow, a world traveler, and quite a catch. Her second husband and love of her life, Harry, was recently deceased and she told me of no less than three proposals she received in the years following. Once, she visited me to seek my approval. I had nothing good or bad to say, I told her. Later, she declined but told me my ambivalence had nothing to do with it. One proposal she honored, though that marriage was unhappy and the marriage was soon annulled.

Doris liked to tell of her around-the-world cruise, her travels here and there. And even later, when her strength and money began to evaporate (the Great Recession really hurt her, she said), she never quit traveling entirely. Her world may have contracted but her spirit never did. She went to Charleston, moved to Maine; took apartments in Brevard and Walhalla, bought or rented different houses in Highlands. She had a kind of wanderlust, for sure, but Highlands, once she found it, remained to the end her centering place. She was tethered there, and wherever she ventured, for however long, she always came back up the mountain to her beloved little town.

Not that “all things Highlands” pleased her. She often decried the changes she had seen over the years. She would watch from the Main Street-side porch of her last apartment, on the second floor of an office in Wright Square. She took note of the weather, the number of tourists, the general state of things in her little corner of the world.

Doris was a woman of strong opinions. She inveighed about various businesses and restaurants, the hospital, Chestnut Hill, her landlords and other townspeople. Had opinions about her preachers, too, of course, first at the Presbyterian Church and then at Highlands United Methodist where, in the late 80’s and early 90’s, I first came to know and treasure her.

We shared a love of English Bulldogs. She adored my family. We enjoyed occasional meals.  

At church, she made an unexpected and (at the time) rather large gift to our church’s building fund. A world-class artisan, she later led the committee that cross-stitched the first set of kneelers for the redesigned sanctuary. She was a fixture at worship for long years.

Eventually, though, time, various ailments and disaffections, and pain in her legs prevented her walking to church anymore--which she had done once she gave up her car. That was especially hard for her and her traveling spirit, and especially with her children living elsewhere.

She had helpers, though. Folks that would take her out, get her mail, make sure she made her doctor’s appointments. Her daughter Cheryl and her husband Floyd came to see her regularly; and Mark, her son, came by when he was on this side of the country. She had a granddaughter she loved hearing from.

But she was very much her own person. Getting a second-story apartment in her 90’s because climbing the stairs would be good for her, she said. Having her own table, as it were, at Wild Thyme, where she was always greeted by name when we went there. Wild Thyme was her favorite restaurant: gourmet without being uppity, like Doris herself. Every meal we took over the years, save one, was at Wild Thyme. Some of the other restaurants in town represented some of the changes that did not meet her approval.

The last time I saw her was the Tuesday after Easter, just a couple of weeks ago now. My friend Terrie was with us. We picked her up at her apartment, which was always meticulously and tastefully ordered. We looked at her current cross stitching projects, pictures of her bulldogs, pictures of Eleanor, of other people and places. Then we took her to lunch.

At Wild Thyme she had mushroom soup, a chicken wrap with avocado and fresh sweet potato chips. Now and then over the hour we acted as if we were having a conversation; but deaf as we both of us were, and loud as the restaurant always was, it was more a mime routine than actual interaction. And hilarious, it must have been, to any who caught sight of us leaning-in, moving our mouths slowly, each of us pretending we understood what the other was saying, smiling and nodding.

Even now it makes me chuckle, as in fact we did at the end of every one of those exchanges. As if we both realized it was futile, but no matter. It was good just to be in proximity. To celebrate a decades-long friendship that was deeper than mere words. We would laugh, pat each other’s hand, and go on with our meal.

After lunch, we made our way toward my car, more slowly than usual.

“We have a great parking place,” she said. “Whenever I come here, a place just opens up for me.” That is not my precise memory.

I saw Kilwin’s, the ice cream shop and—inspiration! “Doris, would you like a cone?”  

She thought for a second and said, “Sure!” Flavor? “Chocolate!” She later said it was the first ice cream cone she had had in years.  

She was dressed, as always, to the nines. Light blue wool suit, plaid; beautiful silk blouse; big, heavy ear rings, necklaces and bracelets. Flats. She had given up her pumps years before for the sake of her legs and for fear of falling. Her hair was in place, her make-up done—as it probably had been since early that morning. In all my life, even when she came to visit me and my family, which she did a couple of times, helping us move into a new place (she also made day trips to hear me preach), I never, ever saw her without make-up or in other than classic attire.

And others took note, too. Just before I retrieved the cones, a lady in running shorts and a tank top, her hair pulled-back and looking particularly casual, came up to us. She said to Doris, “It is so nice to see someone who still dresses for the day! I don’t myself, obviously, but it just gladdens my heart to see someone who is so beautiful and still takes care to dress-up!”

Then I got the cones.

We were sitting outside. Though it was a mild day we were in the sun and the ice cream began to melt. Terrie and I were busy with our own orders, though I had the foresight to get a cup. I looked over, and Doris had chocolate ice cream on her nose, her chin, and her hand. She looked down to see she had dripped chocolate on her wool skirt.

I laughed right out loud. “You have chocolate all over you!” I said.

She laughed too. A too-much-fun-to-feel-embarrassed, good-to-be-a-child-again-if-only-for-a-moment kind of laugh. 

I got more napkins and she cleaned up as best she could. I drove her around town too, which she said she was a rare treat anymore.

And, to jump to the end, when I heard this morning that she had died last night, I was sorry but somehow not shocked. As we parted, she told me what a wonderful time she’d had. But in the weeks since, I had not received a Thank You note for our little excursion. I certainly did not expect such, but that was her custom and in times past, I would have found it in my mailbox by the time I returned home. Today, looking back on the last few days, I realize I have had a misty sense that something was wrong.

We took her back to her apartment, but did not go back in. We hugged, gave each other a kiss on the cheek. She and Terrie did the same. She squeezed my hand, thanked me, asked when I was coming back.

“Soon,” I said, though I did not know exactly when.

My last image of her is going through the door to climb those stairs again, back to her needlepoint, her pictures, her little view of the street and world.

My first, last, best hope for her is that, today, she has found another room prepared for her, decorated by Jesus himself, where now can see so much more of the world than ever before.