Black sequin 1920's style dress, a gift from my best friend Fanny's mother, Kerstin. Black lace socks, Lindex. Black shoes, Vagabond.
I'm so glad I decided to wear this dress out to dinner tonight - and to be honest, I'm almost as glad that the sun sets so late during the Swedish summer nights! I didn't have time to take photos before we left, and I really wanted to capture this look. I've e-mailed these photos to my best friend's mom and hopefully she'll see how grateful I am for this dress. Or more so, for the fact that she still thinks of me and cares about me.
I would like to share something with you. I've translated a piece I wrote last summer, as one of my weekly columns in a Swedish magazine. Before you read it, I just want you to know the story behind it.
A Tuesday of January of 2010, Fanny called me. Nothing unusual about this, since we called eachother about ten times a day, whenever we couldn't spend every waking hour together. But this particular time was special. In the worst possible way a phone call could be special.
I was sitting on my bed in the tiny sublet apartment I was soon going to move away from, the sun was shining, reflecting glitter cascades in the snow outside my window. And she told me that the doctors had found a tumour. That the pain in her right shoulder was not an infection, just like it wasn't calcific tendinitis or anything else they had been stating - or, rather, guessing - during the last month. It was osteosarcoma. It was cancer.
The sun was still shining. I couldn't believe it had the nerve to do so. But it did.
Six months of chemotherapy and radiation later, it was all over. No, not over. Fanny was still alive. But the doctors declared that they had done it all, and the tumour was still growing, faster and more aggressive than ever. There was nothing else to try, no miracle to hope for. We were going to lose her. In every way that mattered, it was over.
Only a handful of people even knew that Fanny was sick. She didn't want people to worry, she didn't want their pity. She didn't want to say goodbye.
All she wanted was to spend the time she still had left with the people she loved, the ones she knew loved her more than anything.
And I was so, so alone in all of this. Every week I had to write a column about my life, my thoughts, my feelings. And I couldn't write one word about the only thing on my mind, the only thing that mattered to me. The one thing that was tearing me apart, ripping my very being into pieces. Every word I wrote felt like a lie, a damn joke.
I couldn't stand it any longer. I had to write something that was true. So I wrote this. It's not a column, it's a letter. A way to say all that was on my mind, without letting anyone know what was really going on. A way to tell the truth while keeping her secret safe.
When I wrote this, in my bed in our beautiful house that I had barely even noticed I was suddenly living in, I didn't know if Fanny would still be with us when it was published. All I was praying for in that moment was that I would get to keep her. That was all I ever prayed for.
There was never a doubt in my mind. Nothing to ponder or think through.
I'm not ashamed to call it love at first sight. I knew straight away, I was sure: we were meant to be. You were going to become my best friend.
If only I deserved you, if I'd be enough. If only you wanted me.
You did.
These words are all for you.
In a few weeks five years will have passed since we met, that very first time. We've lived a life time since. Just kids back then, that's how it feels. Like I grew up with you. Half an inch away. No, closer.
The luck I've had.
It happened in the blink of an eye. From one moment to another you were mine and I was yours and the air so much easier to breathe. I suddenly had nothing to hide, no need to defend, to pretend, to try and be all those things I'm not. I got to start over - clean, pure, the sorrows of my childhood forgotten, the sins of my teenage years forgiven.
Nothing I didn't dare to tell you - no topic was too small to discuss for hours, no issue too big, too dark, too hard. When no answers were to be found, we looked for them together. When there were no words, we invented our own.
All those years, we had so much time. So much! No limits, no ends. So much time. We talked about forever like it existed, let the minutes turn into hours and the hours into days, months, years. So much time.
And school ended and reality took its place. It could have changed us, let us slip away, grow apart, the way friends do when life takes a new direction. But I never feared. When there would be no time we'd make some. When life would try to pull us apart, we'd hold eachothers' hands, ever so tightly. Never let go.
I was right. Of course I was right.
There were never any doubts that you would become my best friends. I knew straight away, I was sure. But I could never have dreamt of all the things you would come to be.
You've become a part of me. I am who I am because of you. Because you've believed in me, supported me, comforted me, completed me, challenged me, questioned me, healed me, loved me.
You're so much more than my best friend. You're my sister. My greatest love.
Before you came there was noone. Noone will take your place.
So much in this life is evanescent. But not you. Never you.
If only there were words to explain how grateful I am for everything you give me. If only there were sentences strong enough, if only there were.
If only.
But maybe this is all it takes. Maybe it's enough.
Maybe no words are needed.
You already know.
(She did read it. She fought for so much longer than anyone could ever have expected. In the afternoon of Tuesday the 21st of September, she finally went to sleep. Since that moment, not one second has passed. I'm still stuck. Right there. Holding hands, ever so tightly.)
