Lunch with Julie

I had lunch with my friend Julie the other day. If you happened to be in the restaurant, you might have noticed us, two forty-something women, both wearing glasses, jeans, a little make-up, sharing a pizza and just talking.

But our lunch together was more than might have met your eye. The waitress might have noticed the tears in my eyes at one point, as I told Julie why she means so much to me.

I first met Julie back in 1994, when our sons were attending preschool together. I had chosen that particular preschool because it offered a supplemental program for kids with special needs. My son, at the age of three, had been diagnosed with autism that year, and we were advised to enroll him in a program that catered to so-called "typical" children, because these children, by virtue of being "typical", would model behavior we wanted our son to learn. I had only just learned that "typical" was a euphemism for "normal." The school also provided speech and occupational therapy for kids that needed it.

Making friends did not come easily to my son. After all, what three-year old wants to play with a child who doesn't smile, who rarely speaks, who seems not to know how to play? But Julie's son liked ours, and so began a friendship that gave us hope.

Kids in suburbia can be cruel. Their parents too. I could feel the cold response, or lack of one, when we tried to arrange play dates. Was it because our son rode the special bus to preschool? Because he didn't make eye contact with them? Was I oversensitive and too quick to cast blame where there was none? Maybe.

But Julie and her son always invited mine over to play. Or they accepted our invitations. Julie was wearing a wig then, one with brown hair and bangs. I guessed she had cancer, but she never mentioned it so neither did I. One night during that time I was at a party when Julie's name came up. "It's so sad," someone said, "she has a brain tumor and she's only 27."

So that was it. Not long after that, Julie and I had lunch, and she explained why she had a full-time babysitter who did all the driving, even though she herself was not working. "Sometimes I get seizures," she said, "so it isn't really safe."

The years went on, and Julie got better. Our sons were good friends for years, but by high school, they weren't hanging out together anymore. They remained friendly, but were simply involved in different things. My son thrived as the years passed, and our fears for his future were greatly relieved.

I ran into Julie occasionally, usually at school events or the grocery store, and we'd always chat for a few minutes to catch up. At lunch one time she was happy to be celebrating twelve years without cancer. Her brown hair was thick and curly, and I thought she looked quite beautiful. She told me to bring food to my sister-in-law, who was then going through chemo for breast cancer.

Two years ago, I heard from a neighbor that Julie was back in chemo. There were two brain tumors this time, inoperable. Around the same time, both our sons were starting with the school crew team. I called Julie, a little fearful over how she'd sound, but, I thought, if I was sick, I'd hate it if people avoided me out of simple fear. She immediately put me at ease, and explained what was happening. I told her I was driving my son to crew practice every day, and offered to drive hers too. Her voice cracked as she thanked me, and she actually apologized for needing help.

"Don't thank me, " I said. "You have one job to do, and that is to get well. Do that." She said she'd try, and I knew she would.

We had more lunches. She looked pale and fragile. Her hair had fallen out in patches, and she was wearing a ballcap. She never complained, not once. Then, a year ago, an MRI showed the tumors had stopped growing, and she could stop chemo. I started seeing her at school events again, and when we had lunch at Christmas, her hair had grown in and she had regained that glow in her face. She drove herself to meet me.

Life goes on, and as the months progressed, I kept thinking to myself, I need to call Julie. I had not yet gotten around to it when a neighbor told me, "Julie's sick again. We're organizing dinners for her family." I said to put me on the list, and I went home and called her.

"How are you?" I asked.

"Not so good," she said, and gave me a brief update that amounted to the cancer was back, and she had to return to chemo, this time every other week. I didn't ask how a person was supposed to survive that kind of assault with such frequency. We decided to have lunch. I'd drive, since she no longer could. "I'm just too spacey," she said.

That is how we came to be sharing a pizza the other day. As lunch progressed, i began to glimpse the seriousness of the situation. One minute we'd be talking easily; the next, she had trouble recalling her son's name. Whenever there was a blank spot in her recall, she apologized.

That's when I realized I had to tell her why she's special to me. I drove her places and had lunch with her. Those are small things. She gave me hope, and my son friendship, at a time when I felt dispair. The beautiful part about Julie is that she really had no idea she was doing anything special. Julie was just being Julie. Her son liked mine, so she liked him too.

I'm in prayer mode now. Even though I confess I don't know if there is a God, and I don't know if the Virgin Mary is just a myth, I'm still praying to them. My son is fine now. I pray that Julie will be too.