Missing Lainey

If there's one person that I wish was here with me for life post-op, it would be my friend, Lainey.

We met 20 years ago next month during my first year in college. I was lighting kleenex on fire and she was chain smoking across the room. She told me to stop playing with fire and "light a cigarette with that damn thing instead." So I did.

Most people thought we were a freak of a couple. She was a good 22 years my senior, an almost dried-out drunk and a biker babe who loved big, Harley-riding guys with long, grizzly beards.

I was a crazy, self-destructive 18-year-old who didn't know her ass from her elbow, making her way through school while trying to hide from her family.

Lainey was a townie. I was a coed. And we met in a psychiatric hospital. The staff discouraged me from hanging with her. But once we were out, we stuck pretty close to each other. I think it was because we both felt unconditional acceptance--she for the choices she had made in her life, me for the ones I suspected were coming.

After I was graduated, I moved back to Wisconsin. Lainey took off for Phoenix. And in a couple of years we had lost contact. Then in '93, I got a call from her. She wanted to tell me that she was going to be on Connie Chung's news program. They did a segment about her search for her birth parents and her reunion with a half brother she'd never met. The angle, though, was that Lainey had AIDS. I hadn't known that.

We picked up our friendship where we left off. By now, she had been sober for 5 years. I was out for 6. I made a few trips to Phoenix to visit. She made plans to move to Wisconsin. She didn't have kids. She wasn't married. And her reunion with her biological family quickly soured.

Finally, in early 2000, Lainey moved to Milwaukee to live with me and Rose. We fully expected her to die within the year. But, instead, she toughened up and got a studio apartment of her own over on the east side (where she could get into all the trouble she wanted without my nagging.)

In April 2003, Lainey was diagnosed with breast cancer that had spread to her liver and lungs. Chemo really did a number on her. But by late September of that year, everything looked pretty clear.

I got a call the Thursday before Thanksgiving that year from Lainey's neighbor. She said Lainey seemed really out of it and non-responsive. By the time I got to her apartment, Lainey couldn't talk. Her eyes could. But her mouth couldn't. And she acted like she didn't know how to walk. In order to get her to the car, the maintenance guy and I put her on a dolly and wheeled her down three flights of stairs.

Hours later, it was confirmed that her cancer had returned and had shown up in her brain. Aggressive radiation helped bring back her speech and mobility. But she couldn't move back into her apartment. So I found an awesome hospice for AIDS patients. We moved her there the day after Thanksgiving.

Christmas was hard that year. Everyone but Lainey knew she was going to die. It was frustrating to listen to her plan for moving out and getting a job. Early in January '04, Lainey finally accepted that the cancer was going to kill her. And then it went fast.

I spent the last week with Lainey around the clock. She could speak very little. Again, though, her eyes stayed focused. The last couple of days she was pretty much unconscious, so I just played her favorite music, rubbed lotion on her hands, moistened her lips, helped change her diapers. I told her so much during those long snowy nights. Like how she was the one person that never expected more from me than what I could offer...that loved me for who I was, no matter how shitty that was sometimes. I told her I was pissed that she was dying, but relieved that it was finally going to be over. I told her I'd be there by her side when she died.

But I wasn't. That last night had been a peaceful night for her. The morning before, she had sat bolt upright, smiled at me and told me she was going to be ok. It was the first time she had talked in 6 days. Throughout that day, she slept quietly. Her breath was smooth. I stopped counting the seconds between gasps.

So after staying with her all night, I decided to run home, shower and stop by the office to pick up some work. I was just leaving work when the phone rang and the hospice director told me to come right away. Lainey had taken a very sudden turn for the worse. The nurse was with her and thought she'd die within the hour.

It was snowing so furiously as I left the building. Traffic was slow and it took me a half hour to get to her. I was too late. I think Lainey probably took her last breath as I was pulling out of the driveway to leave.

When I got there, I went right to her room. I don't remember if I realized right away that she was dead. I don't know if they told me or I checked her breath. But I made everyone leave the room. I fixed the false teeth in her mouth. Put sweat pants on her. Covered her feet. Fixed her stocking cap. The funeral home people came to take her and after they put her on the bag on the gurney, I folded her hands on her stomach and zipped up the bag.

During the next few weeks, I waited for Lainey to haunt me. She said she was coming back. But she never did. I'm hoping that it's because whatever happened to her on the other side was well worth the one-way ticket.

I wish I could explain better what this woman meant to me. I loved her so deeply and respected her so fiercely. She was my rock for so many years. I'd give anything for her to be here with me now. I know she'd understand my fear, my uncertainty. I know she'd have the right words to say when I need encouragement, empathy or a kick in the ass. She wouldn't let me get away with not going to the gym or with feeling sorry for myself.

I just miss Lainey so much.