Me and Francine

In the U.S. Mother's Day is May 10. Personally, I think Mother's Day is a shit holiday, invented by Hallmark to trade on the guilt of prodigal children and befuddled husbands. Mind you, I say this as a mother and person who *loves* a good holiday. And I will be there to celebrate my mother and all the fabulous women who've mothered me through life. But that's the thing - I know so many fabulous women who deserve more than one day of pampering, lunching, and kudos - and until they add 364 more days to this Mother's Day hullabaloo, Hallmark can keep it.

Grousing aside, a very worthwhile and rewarding event takes place in Philly each year on Mother's Day - the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to raise money and awareness for breast cancer research. This year I've teamed up with a bunch of lovely, altruistic women to run the 5K race and stomp this disease into the ground. We'll raise money, limp through training, and rise with the sun to compete; we'll bravely stare down the monster and - for a moment - feel like we've won. We'll do our part for all the amazing women who deserve a 365-day celebration.

One of the most glowing, mind-blowing, amazing women I know is my friend Francie Scott. Francie rocks. She's a journalist, a mother, a grandmother, a friend. She's New Zealand-born elegance with a lilting, ephemeral accent; she loves Garrison Keillor, Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, Jane Austen, and has a huge crush on Michael Ball. She's my 'proper' friend, with a naughty streak, who makes room for my bawdy humor and snarky temperment in her warm and inviting world - all while battling breast cancer.
When I first got to know her, she was five years in remission. The disease had weakened her, but didn't break her. When we look back on that, we shake our heads in disbelief at all that came after. In cancer-speak, five years of remission is a turning-point to increased survival rates, and decreased rates of recurrence. We all thought, "Yay, five years!" - hurdle cleared. Or not.

Time passed. Francie's cancer came back. She dragged herself to chemo and back to work with the rest of us at the magazines. The chemo managed the disease and Francie managed the chemo. Life continued to happen - there was a wedding, the birth of a grandchild, moving to a more manageable space, and readjustment. Then cancer started juicin' on 'roids and upped the ante, attacking her bones, wearing away her hip, weakening her spine.

Again, I remind you, Francie rocks. She rocked through the rattling pain of cancer completely devouring her hip socket, she rocked through the agony of her right foot dropping inches lower than her left as her leg migrated south with nothing to keep it in place. She rocked through her hip replacement surgery, through her physical therapy and the well-meaning-visitor-filled hours in the chasm in between. She just plain rocked, all the while keeping her cancer at bay. But cancer is a greedy fucker, and it came back for more, this time snacking on her spine. I remember Francie at my wedding, only weeks after her spinal surgery, a regal turtle inside this ungodly contraption of an upper body cast. But there she was, front and center and wishing us well.

Now it's just a haze. Dinner parties, brunches, trips to the cinemas all mingling together with the hand-to-hand cancer combat. Me fighting back the ants-in-my-pants as I struggled to cross the finish line of the last 30-minutes of The Insider, while she was riveted to every minute of Russell Crowe's whiny angst masquerading as drama; she containing her disappointment in Baz Luhrmann's MTV-style Moulin Rouge, while I was riveted to everything. So much more than cancer, chemo, and surgeries. So much to laugh about.

And then she died. In early December 2001 - I can't even remember the exact date - she died. I remember the phone call from her son Aaron to my then husband. "Better come see her now," he said. 'Come see her' - before we left for our weekend in New York City, to celebrate my birthday and comfort the city who'd lost so much 3 months before. But first, go see Francie. Go sit by her bed, hold her hand, kiss her head, say we love her, hold back the tears, and say goodbye. We did.

Then we got on the train to Manhattan. We spent the weekend in our favorite hotel. We sat 10 rows from the stage in the Broadhurst Theater and watched the trifecta of Ian McKellan, Helen Mirran and David Strathairn deliver powerhouse performances...in Strindberg's Dance of Death (talk about timing). We had the obligatory drink in Sardi's, we sulked, we fought, we blamed our inner-blackness on each other. We didn't visit the gaping abyss left in the soul of the city where the Twins fell - bodies were still being removed, the air was almost solid, and the hole in the skyline cast a shadow of unbearable grief. We'd had enough.

Home, then. News of her passing. The mind-numbing funeral. The family asked Michael (aforementioned-then-husband) to deliver the eulogy. His eloquence is unmatched to this day. Tear-stained mourners became groupies and he their rock star as they flocked to his side in droves after the service. He spoke of Francie in the past-tense - he'd already let her go.

This brings me back to the beginning of this post and to my speaking of Francie in the present-tense. This is not grammatical error, but unyielding stubbornness. Francie is still with me. I don't even have to close my eyes to smell the vindaloo wafting from the kitchen, to feel the weight of the wine glass in my hand, the embracing curve of the wing-backed chair in her living room - the one I'd always claimed as mine, or the warmth of her (mostly) Siamese cat Darcy in my lap, which he'd always claimed as his. She's with me. She's fabulous. She is not was. And she's so going to kick my ass for going on about her like this!