If someone is suddenly no longer there

She wasn't in my phone, but of course I knew her. She was one of the first to come for coffee when I started Amayzine, together with her companion T. What my idea was and how we could help each other. A year later I didn't recognize her during Fashion Week. Because of short post-chemo hair. I emailed with apologies. It was okay, she was used to it. Then we joked back and forth. I told her about my friend F who had had the same haircut for a while. A red-checked hockey dad had walked past her and had said teasingly: “Got a haircut?” For a moment my friend was taken aback. Until she masterfully retaliated with: “No, chemo hour.”

She was going to remember that. She wrote a book about healthy eating, which we of course paid attention to. We emailed back and forth and I heard, hooray, that she was cured.

Suddenly a web of people who all knew her very well was spun together. Whether I was already informed. She had called crying. It was bad. Very bad. Girlfriends and companion and primal friend T came to help. A room was set up in a hospice. Paintings from home, dishes from home. A lot of flowers.

I was not in the inner circle. I listened and thought every day: maybe this is the day I hear that it’s over. Now, here in Italy, the message came. First on Instagram. Then a WhatsApp to everyone who wanted to come. That the funeral was on Sunday. That heels might not be handy at the cemetery and that everything else was fine.

I looked at her Instagram. The last post was from a while ago, from the time when the sun was still shining. Now her account is on pause. Because she suddenly is no longer there. I know someone who still pays his mother's phone bill because he wants to keep listening to her voicemail. I hope that occasionally a message appears in her name. To ease the pain a little, to wave away the bitterness. To keep us under the illusion that she is still there. Somewhere where we do not know the way.