Bucket List

Do you have a bucket list? I don't have one per se, just a vague wish-list of travel destinations. Austrailia, Greece, Scandinavia. I have no desire to bungee off a bridge or surf Maui.

Thinking about speech class and Mrs. Boyd the other day got me to thinking about my knot of friends from that class. The four of us, Jim, Ron, J and I would hang out together, go off campus for lunch and talk endlessly about who knows what. J was my best friend from back then. I met her in my English Composition class (ENG 206) and we got along like peanut butter and jelly. Our instructor was A. Perry Whitmore, our silly school-girl emphasis on "A" always made us giggle. Like all college students I've ever known, we were full of inside jokes and would finish each other's sentences. We also shared a love for Dixon Ticonderoga 1388 #2 pencils, the best pencils ever, and a love for horses. For PE credits we took a horseback riding class, and ended up volunteering at the farm on weekends for riding groups. Oh, what fun times.

I left Urbana after two years and transferred to VCU. She stayed and graduated from there with a degree in graphic design (I think), then woke up one day ten years later and wanted to be a dentist. She got into OSU and now she has a dental practice in Kettering, Ohio.

We've kept in touch on an off over the years, not nearly as well as intended. Anyway, since I'd been thinking about her and speech class I called her on my way to work yesterday. No answer at her office (closed on Fridays) so I tried her cell. When she answered, I told her why I called, that I was thinking about her and school. Funny thing was, she has also recently been thinking about our speech instructor as well as thinking about me. We swapped memories for a few minutes and I said we needed to see each other more often.

Then she told me her news: stage 3 breast cancer was discovered in January. It might have spread into her hips which makes it stage 4. Sheesh. My neighbor, L, is recovering fantastically from her mastectomy done last fall. I can only hope and pray J's recovery is that successful. If the cancer has gotten into her hip, she'll start on her bucket list.

I tried to stay positve during the phone call, but my eyes wouldn't stop leaking after I hung up, hoped they weren't too red when I got to the office.