When friends leave

I have been very sad for some time. Something isn't fair. Bea is leaving.

I've known about my dear friend Bea's leaving since a while in fact, since all the way back in July. It's a giant lump in my throat and I can't talk about it or think about it very much without tears brimming and slumpy shoulders and a deep, deep sigh. I've known she would leave for some time, ...one day, but I found out that she was actually going to leave this Summer. It was all very fast. I was on vacation in the States scrolling through week old e-mail and there it was suddenly; a message from her saying that her mother-in-law had finally died. My heart sank in disbelief and I immediately burst into a spontaneous flood of tears. My mom looked at me completely shocked and tried to comfort me, "aww she was an old lady honey, I'm sure it was quick...it was probably her time." I burst out laughing, "Mom I'm not sad about that, I'm sad because this means Bea is going to leave for good and I'll be"all alone " The "all alone" part culminated in a pathetic, little sob and I started crying again.

Oh, I guess I knew all along that she'd leave France one day. I always knew that her mother-in-law was the last piece of string still holding Bea and her and her French husband to the country. It was the last of his relatives and they had always said that when she was gone they would leave within a year to join Bea's enourmous, boisterous, extended family in North Carolina. It was to be the end of an era of friendship and the truth was suddenly before me hitting me in the face like a bucket of ice cold water, *shiver*

Bea was an immediate treasure. The little golden coin I had discovered in my small French village by the lake. She'd been adopted by me seven years ago when she was a mere stay at home mom of a 5 month old boy and I was a fresh-faced, enthusiastic arrival off the proverbial love boat which had sailed from the USA to my new French boyfriend's arms. I was living with this fine boyfriend, you all know him as Seb, in a tiny little squalor with a view that we adored beyond belief, and filling my afternoons with trips to the local boulangerie and the Mayor's office to file stacks of immigration papers. I had no idea what I was doing half the time and I felt like I was running into walls and tripping over my tongue more times than a human being should rightly be asked to. When I met Bea it was because she had been looking for a babysitter for her son and someone thought it amusing to send her me, a real, honest to goodness American girl they'd met near the playground behind the boulangerie. Bea lived in a lovely, 15th century converted stable house near the lake, bought with the unfortunate funds of a series of deaths by close relatives on both her and her husband's side. Her home was a haven to me in more ways than you can imagine. Bea is Southern and I was raised in Florida, which if you must know is the pseudo South and not really Southern, but not so Northern either. All of my maternal family has deep Southern roots though "by dern," and it just feels right to me to live below the Mason Dixon line and bond with folks who take life a little slower than the rest of the world. I'm sure it's in the blood because I can feel it pulsing through my veins whenever I hear a snippet of news about anything happening in my home-away from France. And so well Bea has always felt like a snippet of that too; a fresh slice of home to me, and probably why I grew to dearly love her, visit by visit and call after call. We're true blue friends who can pretty much tell each other anything. We never go a week without an hour and half long telephone call where we literally gab about nothing but recipes, literature, linguistics, baby rearing and our next planned gathering, which by a certain law we've drawn up, never lapses more than a few weeks, and usually involves a sleepover since we live an hour apart these days. I love her family and I know them well and they know the intimate details of my life too because they've followed it closely through Bea's telling and their yearly visits to France.

Bea is probably most renown for her cooking and entertaining skills. She is by far the best cook I've met while living in France, and that is no easy compliment to earn here. Well, I mean best cook in the domestic realm that is. She can make just about anything out of nothing and never makes the same recipe twice. You never know when showing up on a Sunday afternoon whether she'll scrub up some Tunisian, Mediterranean, or Deep Southern dish that will have you rolling your eyes in ecstasy for seconds and thirds. Her recipes always have a twist,--a dash of mint or a sprig of rosemary, that changes it all into something uniquely her own that's difficult to recreate from a recipe, even though she always say's it's easy. She has a real gift for cooking and I hope one day she opens a restaurant or something because she owes it to society, particularly American society, to share her culinary gifts.

It's been Bea I've know the longest here in this merry-go-round land of marveille and often loathing. It's her who held my hand through mindless French paperwork translations, my first teaching job and my many moments of "should I stay or go" doubt and frustration about living in France. She has summarily watched me go from a gangly newlywed (she was my "best" witness), to struggling with infertility (lots of frustrating tears), to teaching classes of thirty-five students (gasp), to becoming a new mom trying desperately to find a parenting niche. She's always stood by me and supported my choices and even if she disagreed she politely let me know but supported my choice once it was clear there was no going back. And I've done my part too. I sat back and held her hand as I watched Bea evolve from an overprotective mom of a tiny "nothing" year old to a mom of two strapping young men aged 5 and 7 who now taunt her daily with their whines of "let us please mom" until she has to snap and say "you guys are driving me nuts!"

It all went so quickly. It's like one day I was sitting in her little garden at her husband's 38th birthday party seven years ago, and then I turned around and here she's packing boxes of things to give me that she can't possibly ship back home.

I'm going to find it very hard to lose her. France just won't seem the same without her funny insights, her cooking, her accent, her humor. I know we'll stay in touch but she'll be taking a part of my heart with her and that's just not fair.