I lost my best friend, Gaylee, May 3, 2019 – her six-year struggle against cancer lost – but never our enduring love. Her partner, Jim, and son, Damon, requested that remembrances said at her memorial June 29, 2019, be no longer than 5 minutes. I balked. Like Gaylee’s gray-silver wavy locks throughout her chemotherapy; her hair thinning, but not lost until her friend Gabrielle cut it short about two months before her leaving us. One month later, she proudly shows me her head shorn, enlarging her blue eyes to being bigger than life, like her ability to love!

I write her eulogy. I edit her eulogy. I say her eulogy out loud. It is 7-8 minutes long. I type it up as is. I have not lost the old voice which echoes please others more than yourself.

I ask myself what would Gaylee want. I hear her voice (tears) more loudly: “Keep your commitment to love.” The last, not lost, words I hear from her lips four days before leaving this earth plane. Never my heart.

At her memorial, tears sprinkle my cheeks as I read for eight minutes.