Loss and Celebration

Los Angeles, California

I believe that there are few things as important in friendship as celebrating birthdays. Lisa has a big birthday coming up shortly, so I jumped on early to present her with her gift and take her to lunch at King's Fish House. Joel and I celebrated his birthday there last summer, sharing oysters at the bar. Lisa and I shared poke and a caesar salad. My friend Todd also has a big birthday this month, coincidentally the day after Lisa's. A decade separates them, but who's counting?

Todd and I lost our friend, Curt, last week. The fact that he is gone hasn't quite settled in. I think I'm still not ready to accept the loss, nor to write about him. Maybe after the holidays. It doesn't feel real yet. He lived in Florida. I'm still thinking he is in Florida. So, I set my mind and heart on celebrating the birthdays of my friends. Not on his heartbreaking death. Not now. Not yet.

A few days after my birthday lunch with Lisa, I dressed up to attend her birthday party at Terra restaurant on the top floor of Eataly. If you aren't lucky enough to live near a city where there is an Eataly, you must travel to one. It is a wonder. And Terra is one of my favorite places to go here in Los Angeles. Eataly is located in Century City, a place that was created when 20th Century Fox got into financial problems in the 1960s and sold off a significant portion of their backlot to create what is known as Century City. I found a dress at the shopping center there, cutting school in eleventh grade to shop with a friend, and later wore it to one of the proms I attended. That was a long time before Eataly arrived after a significant remodel of the shopping center, one of the few remaining outdoor malls in Los Angeles.

Fourteen of us girlfriends celebrated Lisa's birthday enjoying burrata with grilled radicchio, butternut squash ravioli, woodfire-roasted chicken and a cream-filled birthday cake. It was a lovely, warm late-fall day and we sipped rosé as we looked out over the pretty hills of the westside. I am a city girl, through and through. Drop me into a top floor of a hotel or onto a rooftop like this with a view of the city and I am beyond content. It was a lovely celebration. And, with the loss of Curt still tenderly fresh, I thought and remarked that at the end of my life these are the times I will remember. These special events, birthdays, and holidays shared with my friends.

I am a believer in secondary gains. That out of something bad or something sad, something good can come. The loss of Curt has given me a new awareness and a shifted perspective on the people in my life and especially on those friends whom I have often called family. Todd and I have already shared too many losses but we have borne them together. And Lynnette, who I believe God provided for me at a time when I needed that kind of a friend. I know with certainty we will always be there for each other. And my friend, Connie, who has included Joel and me in her family's Thanksgiving for almost a decade. My friendship with her is for our lifetimes. With the recent loss, these are among the friends who are in my heart this season. I am lucky to know these and other friends like Lisa who fill spaces in my heart. And I am aware that not everyone has friends like these nor does everyone have the capacity to be a genuine friend. I know my fortune in the gifts I have found in these friendships. 

So, happy birthday to my frister, Lisa. And to my friend, Todd. They have been topping my most-nightly gratitude list all week, as has my late friend, Curt. We never know who we might lose at any time. So, my secondary gain is a renewed cognizance of true, intentional friendship, and of my mindfulness to make every effort to be that kind of friend. To spend time and to celebrate together. For they are not long, these days of wine and roses (and rosés).