She called me ‘A-bomb.’

We met lumbering around in pre-natal aerobics in 1987 at a fancy health club in San Francisco we could barely afford. My mother had just died and I had spent four months in a new city throwing up knowing no one; both my skin and my soul were translucent. I have no doubt I heard her laugh first from across the room, but whatever drew us together lasted like glue for the following thirty-eight years, over thousands of miles, through serious health issues for both of us, the death of her spouse and the grief that followed.

When she beamed her light on you there was no going back. Everything she did, designed, wore, commanded was larger than life, straight-on classy and always crisp white or navy linen. I adored being in her orbit and later, as we faced our adult challenges, having her on the other end of the phone to laugh with, anger with and decompress alongside.

She sent me absurd and outrageous gifts which were somehow always just right: a waist-high hand woven basket for my yarn when I had my hip replaced. Tiny spherical etched glasses to toast my first steps. Over the years wildly impractical and sustainable skeins of yarn in — she wrote — the color that reminds me of you. In 2000 for the New Years a bracelet arrived so jingly and sparkly and joyful I still have it in a bag even though the elastic gave out long ago.

She read everything I wrote. She would call, begin at the top of her voice, “A-BOMB YOU ARE AMAZING’ then chastise me for not writing more. There are so many stories.

Losing her spouse, living alone, facing her own health challenges have been hard for the last two years. I was able to visit her many times over the decades in her various beautifully decorated nests in Sonoma, in between no matter how many miles apart we talked, texted at all hours, shared our project tips, news about weddings, babies and parents. Each call felt like I was sinking into that familiar oversized white linen couch, cup of tea in hand, our legs tucked under us.

We argued over the years as fiercely as we loved. Then we laughed harder.

This Christmas I sent her a silly little sliver of a bead bracelet and wrote her I had one too and it was to be our ‘friendship’ bracelet. We hadn’t had contact over the busy holiday season but last Thursday I checked in by text to see if she had picked up the package. She went to the post office immediately and replied that she had put it right on, then gave me a run-down on her visitors over the holidays, what she knit for everyone and what she was casting on for the next project. I sent her the links to my recent publications.

I should have called instead.

Her daughter phoned me Monday to tell me my friend had died in her sleep that weekend.

Sudden loss is an unbelievable grief. I keep wanting to call her about the wildfires in California, does she smell smoke? Is she safe? To hear her laugh and tell me everything is alright. But it isn’t. She landed almost four decades ago in an important place within my soul which has gone abruptly and irreversibly vacant. I vacillate between anger and tears. I don’t think there is an in-between anytime soon.

I have been through a lot of death and dying. For the most part I have had time to compose my goodbye, my grief, my breath. Not so here. I am still gasping.

Wow and wow this life is fragile and splendid, full of grace and heartache and it hurts, all of it.

Send the bracelet. Make the call. If you are thinking of someone it is because they need to hear from you.

Be the friend you need.

Miss you, B-bomb.