There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one’s self, the very meaning of one’s soul. ~Edith Wharton

I don’t know what made me look at my phone when we got to PF Chang’s.  I don’t know how many calls I’ve ever gotten that start with: I’m ok, but I’m about to go into surgery. I don’t know how long I held my breath, I don’t know why I listened to Sandra when she said no don’t come I’ll need you when I get home.

I don’t know how I enjoyed my meal, except that I was with my sister. I don’t know how I just opened the gate when I got home and let my Toto pull me off the deck and get away.  I don’t know how she just decided to come right back.  I’d like to believe that she turned around and saw I wasn’t there and came looking for me.  I don’t know how I escaped with only bruises from the fall, maybe because I really don’t mind being compared to an eight year old.

I do know that when she called on Wednesday with her words caught in her throat I would be there by lunch the next day.

Through whatever unfolding of the universe my best friend found herself in Adirondack Medical Center with two broken legs.  I say this because she had been lamenting her excessive travel, her deep need for balance, her concern for things missed, her family making due without her for probably two years and I really feel like White Face heard her.

The emergency surgery on Sunday was highly successful with a prognosis of full recovery.  Luckily AMC is well in tune with the care and anticipated recovery of athletes and practices emergency sports medicine.

Originally Sandra was to be sent home to arrange the surgery on her other leg.  It was some knee related, tibia cabling, meniscus adjusting blah blah blah, that I still don’t really understand, but it could wait.  There is something very important that happens in an emergency room, it’s an immediate trust connection that Sandra had no intention of letting out of her universe. So strings were pulled, schedules adjusted and the second surgery was to be handled later in the week.

Sandra’s husband David took their daughter home on Wednesday resting assured that Sandra’s mother would be there the next day for the second surgery.  God knows what circumstances stood in the way of that but Sandra’s call to me was panicked, fearful and raw.  Can you come?  Like I said….

I did indeed arrive by lunchtime on Thursday in plenty of time for the second surgery.  With hugs and tears and hand holding and recounting and reliving we spent our first couple of hours exhaling.  Off to surgery she goes and off I go to do what I do.  There were groceries to buy, she wasn’t eating.  There were clothes to buy that could accommodate her braces and boot and soreness.  There were websites to explore.  There were Facebook posts to put out.  There were phone calls to take and make.  There was the hand ringing and praying.

Again, another highly successful surgery with another highly confident prognosis of perfect recovery was performed.  What we didn’t realize was that this was a more difficult surgery that would result in more pain, more new physical therapy, and more anxiety more soul searching, and just plain more.

Friday was not going to be the best day.  I’ve known Sandra a very long time.  This year it will be twenty five years to be exact and I know how she thinks and what makes her respond to the adversity that is thrown her way.  She knows the same about me.  She thinks differently so when the physical therapist is telling her to do….whatever this new two legs broken thing is….she would instinctively look to me for the translation she could use.  I love that about us, a wordless glance can instantly translate that all will be well.  I can stop her brain from running away and redirect it; it’s just always been that way for us both.  We got through Friday, we learned more, we did better, we cried, we shared and shed all the toxins that would impede healing.

Saturday would prove to be the sunny encouraging day we had hoped.  Sandra spent the morning getting ready to go home.  By afternoon we were seated side by side in the “lodge room”  Ipads in hand comparing tips and websites (told you I had homework to do) and how the hell to use Facebook and Twitter once and for all.

All the arrangements had been made for her departure in the morning.  And each of us vowed to get a good night’s sleep.  One final hug and I left her in good hands excitedly waiting for her journey home to her family in sound mind and peace.

How much of this she will remember in years to come, I don’t know.  What I know like I know is that a warm hug and the scent of Miracle by Lancôme will bring back memories for her of a friend that is no longer a separate person but part of her very being.  We will laugh about much of this one day, the much that I didn’t document here and we will share our friendship for at least another twenty five years.  Prognosis: perfect.