Judith

I would visit to massage her feet and help in any other way I could. Her conversation was often about her son, just five years old at the time. She ruminated on what would become of him once she was gone. That concerned her most of all.

In her last months she gave away her things, thoughtfully choosing this item or that based on each friend’s character. She gave me a pair of earrings - exquisite little clusters of purple glass beads, gathered like tiny grapes, unusual and quietly artistic. She said that she picked them out for me because: “You are subtly outrageous.” (She was right about that).

She loved her little boy above all else. I had become his caregiver, arriving before she went to work as part time receptionist for our housing co-op's office. When she got home her eyes would light up the moment she saw him. She always took such good care of him, dressing him lovingly, making sure he was warm in winter, so I could take him out for walks on weekends. Once, she reproached me (in the nicest possible way) for not making my own children wear undershirts in cold weather.

He was her little man. In his small navy blue peacoat and cap, his eyes sparkled just like hers and his smile was like hers too, dimpled and cute as a button (you could see his dad in his features as well).

She told me that the best part of being an older mother (over 40) was that you could be both mama and gramma to your child, bringing the best of both roles - doting as a mama and wise as a gramma. She herself always seemed so youthful to me - always smiling as she moved about like a dancer. In her youth, she told me, she’d trained as a ballerina but when it was determined she didn’t have the correct build for ballet, she gave it up.

I think that terpsichorean quality informed her way of being in the world. Her body could well have taken on the role of ballerina. And she clothed it in the most understated but elegant garments. I always admired her outfits, paying special attention to her socks - ankle socks of pale blue or warm pink with flower patterns. She gave me a pair when she was distributing all her treasures; they’d yet to be worn but she didn’t think she’d be needing them. After massages, I'd slip her feet into woolly socks, plain but warm.

In the little space where she worked (in a co-op apartment renovated into an office) she sat at her desk being efficient and friendly at the same time. She and her coworker, who also lived in the co-op and was a friend, made that office a welcoming place. Judith brought the same aesthetic and feeling to her small two bedroom apartment - she created a cozy and safe place for her kid to grown up in.

I’d been her son’s babysitter for more than a year and in all that time she seemed to be in good health. When the doctor gave her the news, my duties as caregiver (“second mother”, she called me) ramped up. I was only too willing to help as she tried to prepare for the end. She got in touch with old friends whom she thought could help out as caregivers for her child after she was gone.

Her desk calendar showed a circled date where she’d written “D-Day”. It would be the day she’d find out just how much the cancer had spread. And on the morning after she'd learned that she only had a few months left to live, I saw her going to the laundromat with a load of clothes. “Life goes on...for now,” she said, with her dimpled smile and that forever sparkle in her eyes.

That kind of sparkle and love doesn't stop with the end of an earthly existence. It lives on.