Day 4: Flowers at the door

Her many bouquets, some delivered by strangers

*UPDATE: At the request of the participant, who hasn't told everyone about her situation yet, I have removed her photo and references to her name.

"Dear Rachel,
I just read your email and I have a wonderful idea. One of my very dear friends got diagnosed 1.5 weeks ago with Ovarian Cancer....She is a one of a kind and I love her dearly. Please please please, could you, THIS WEEK, drop by her home with flowers??? It would mean the world to me."

As if I'd say no.

The bouquet from the farmer's market made it home in my backpack relatively unscathed. I put away the groceries, got cleaned up, then started on my mission.

All my friend had given me was a name and an address, three blocks from my house. As I walked the familiar path towards an unfamiliar destination, a hum of anticipation started growing in my stomach. The sun was low in the sky, the air crisp. The thick bunch flowers in my hand seemed like a physical incarnation of the energy I was trying to gather and project, warmth and radiance and caring.

Is it that house with the blue paint and the prayer flags? The one with the high wooden gate? The numbers ticked up towards my destination. Then the street ended. I called my friend, left a message: "Did you give me the wrong address? Can you tell me what the house looks like?" I stood in the street, like a loitering bridesmaid, and looked up and down.

Oh! Right. It's one block over. So nervous, so eager, I'd turned too soon. "You shouldn't have," the grungy young guy on the porch jokes as I head down the proper street.

The house does have prayer flags. The sound of conversation from inside. I ring the bell.

"Are you [X]?" I ask the woman who opens the door. "Miranda sent me." She laughs. This is the third bouquet to arrive care of Miranda, who herself is far far away. We stand there a moment, looking at each other, no movement. I press the case. "She wanted you to have these, and she wanted us to meet." I explain the project. She invites me in.

Three other women are gathered around the table, just finishing dinner. I sit down at the empty chair, and though they offer, don't eat. They all have beautiful tattoos and warm smiles and are friendly to the stranger who just crashed their meal.

At this table, there are issues more pressing than my quest for new friends. I'm happy to listen and chime in where I can. We make small talk about jobs and pets and origins and big talk about what happens and what matters when suddenly you don't have your health. They talk about a party coming up and about giving each other rides.

It's wonderful to see this kind of community in action, even from the outside. I feel slightly the voyeur. These women have years of friendship accumulated, and I arrived unannounced. No one was prepared for making new connections -- this is a time for sustaining the old ones, relying on the familiar to help forget the strange. Still, I hope I can be of help, bring something to this group. I say nothing when people start clearing the dishes, but my instinct is to jump in and help.

Before I leave, we exchange phone numbers. Maybe soon we'll meet for a walk.

***

I can't find the words to say more; I don't feel like I own the scene I witnessed once I walked inside that lovely house. Not that I'm hiding anything; it's just the phrases slide to vague. To write it in detail would be to betray it in a way, to get cold and calculating and make judgements and presumptions that might offend. Or else to wax ecstatic in an equally unhelpful way. I'm suffering the inherent contradiction between being a journalist relating to a subject and being a person trying to make a friend. When in doubt, in this setting, I'm choosing friend.