12/4/25

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

It’s really hard to write this week’s Moment, considering last week’s Moment was about moving step by step through the grief I’ve experienced, and then, within an hour of posting that blog, I found out that a very close friend died unexpectedly on the operating table. She was supposed to be on that table for three to four hours, then recover in the hospital for three to four days, then go home to celebrate a late Thanksgiving. During her at-home recovery, we were going to continue to work on her new novel.

That didn’t happen. Leslie was diagnosed with liver cancer three weeks prior to Thanksgiving. She was told, through testing, that the tumor was small and contained – it hadn’t metastasized. It would be removed, and her life would continue. I spoke to her in the days before surgery and messaged her on Facebook the morning of. After writing the blog, I went on Facebook again to see if anyone posted an update, and found instead an announcement that she died. The tumor was larger than expected and more pervasive. Leslie hemorrhaged and then went into cardiac arrest. And then she was gone.

Ten minutes after reading this, a friend of Leslie’s, who had been given a list by Leslie of people to notify after the surgery, called to tell me the news.

A week later, I am still stunned and overwhelmed.

I met Leslie close to 30 years ago, when I was still teaching for Writers Digest for their Online Writing Workshops. She and I hit it off, and eventually, she began to work with me one on one. This was before I even started AllWriters’. We quickly moved into a friendship as well as the professional relationship, and set up our meeting times so we could get the work done, then just jabber for an hour or so. Michael always knew when I was talking to Leslie, because I’d be laughing so hard.

Leslie was a special ed teacher and she followed my daughter Olivia closely, talking to her on the phone and cheering for her, and using quotes from Livvy to share with her own classroom. Leslie was hoping to come to Olivia’s graduation from graduate school this spring.

When I was in grad school in Vermont for my MFA, and complained about the lack of good Midwestern food (the school was connected to a culinary school, who used us as guinea pigs. I remember looking down at my salad and thinking it resembled a bowl of evergreen needles. Where was the lettuce?), Leslie drove to me from Connecticut and we scoured the surrounding area until we found a grilled cheese sandwich.

Whenever Michael was sick and in the hospital, she sent baskets of gifts. From the time Michael was hit by the passenger van, through his attempt at recovery, through his death, to last week Wednesday, she was as by my side as much she could be, with the miles of Wisconsin and Connecticut between us.

And she continued to write. Three books were published, and a fourth was underway. I am included in her gratitude at the front of every book. The new book is a mystery. And now I’ll never know whodunit.

But here’s the thing. Here’s why I’m writing about this here, in a blog about a Moment of happiness. First off, she provided many, many, many Moments of happiness in 30 years.

But…Leslie and I were polar opposites politically. Complete and total polar opposites.

But we were still the best of friends.

I’ve watched so much divisiveness as people have severed friendships and family connections over politics. It makes me want to pound my head against a wall.

If Leslie and I had let our politics define our friendship, I would never have had the gift of knowing her. Or she the gift of knowing me. I wouldn’t have joined in with her laughter, which was so contagious that people within earshot would start laughing without even knowing what was so funny. I wouldn’t have known her gentle care for children, and her belief that all children of all abilities deserve the best in life. I wouldn’t have had her lifting me up when I didn’t think it was possible to get up anymore. I wouldn’t have been able to admire her steadfast faith, when I find it so hard to believe in any higher power at all.

We both kept our ears and minds open for each other. We listened to what each believed, and if we didn’t agree, then we just didn’t agree. We also both learned that there is a spectrum in political beliefs, just as there is in everything. You might believe this part of a political framework, but not that. You might not believe that, but believe this.

And so when I see people throwing those they’ve been close to out of their lives because of political disconnects, I look at Leslie – and now I think of her, because I can’t see her anymore – and feel oh so grateful that we didn’t allow any of that to come between us. That we recognized the kaleidoscope that is our personalities and our personhood and we clung to each other.

I am beyond grateful to have had Leslie in my life, and even with her gone, her influence and memory will still be here.

I am bereft. Again. Still. But because of Leslie, I know I can pick myself up and continue to move forward.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.

(There won’t be any photos today. I don’t have any of Leslie and me.)