Karen postively radiated sunshine. She was the gentlest person I ever knew—but she was no wimp!
I was blessed to have a best friend in Karen Cummings for 20-plus years. We lived in the same neighborhood, suffered the same anxieties and compulsions, and loved our husbands, kids and lives with equal passion. Whenever we got together, we thoroughly explored the latest crisis, incident, lesson or cause for celebration, and nearly always spent some solid energy congratulating ourselves on our good fortune to have such a friendship.
We lost Karen in June 2010. But she continues to teach me still.I miss her bright smile and her sweet energy and every day remember the things she taught me:
1. A BFF reminds you who you are when you forget. Should I go ahead and get that rescue dog I’d signed up for and now felt skittish about? “It’s what you wanted,” she reminded me.
2. She always believes you can do it. I was 254 pounds. She never stopped being totally confident I’d lose the weight and keep right on growing and changing.
3. She forgives your missteps, and is quick to apologize when she slips up. After years of talking to me nearly every day, for 12 days one spring she didn’t return my calls at all. She was upset with me, how I’d called and left a long, meandering, complaining voice mail on her family’s phone; finally she called, apologized for leaving me dangling, and explained she wanted our friendship to be on a more positive footing–not just about our recovery from food disorders. Then she said with great compassion, “I know it’s tough when someone changes the rules midstream without warning.” And we moved on.
4. She dares to tell you what you really, really do not want to hear. And she does it without making you feel bad. I’d gained back 7 pounds of the hundred I’d lost. “I just call that average fluctuation,” I told her. “I wouldn’t,” she said.
5. She gives you her own copy of the awesome new book she’s been reading, because she knows you’ll just love it, then goes out and buys herself another copy. That was The Secret, from which we both learned, drew out the good, then moved on.
6. She’s endlessly patient. I’m a horrible housekeeper. I talked about it all the time. She never said, “Enough already.” And she never once told me I talked too much (thought I sometimes do).
7. She’s the first to arrive and last to leave your parties. And she forgave if I arrived at one of her parties late or had to leave early.
8. She dares to ask for what she needs and understands when you can’t be there for her and accepts the love you have to offer, the way you are able to offer it, no strings, no expectations. When you do come through, she is so grateful. When she was sick at the end, I was working mega-hours and hated that I couldn’t get to her house more often. “We get together when we’re meant to get together,” she told me. And she meant it.
9. She accepts your differences. We used to laugh, contrasting her tendency for quiet service to others with my more worldly activities and activist tendencies. It was all okay.
10. She gives you so much love and acceptance that you can feel the energy even after she is gone. Now when I meditate and want to feel the love-energy that creates, guides and nourishes us all, I just feel the Karen-love and know I have my very own angel.