Remembering A Cherished Friend
Earlier this month, I was on a cruise when I decided to text my dear friend Molly. We hadn’t been in touch since the holidays and she was on my mind. I told her I would call when I got home. Two days later, I found out on Facebook that Molly had passed away. She was 45.
Molly and I first got to know each other during our junior year in high school. I was new to NYC’s Nightingale-Bamford School, where most of the girls had established cliques going all the way back to kindergarten. Molly went out of her way to welcome me with open arms. We bonded quickly and easily over our shared love of the written word. Even then, she was a brilliant, thoughtful writer. She knew poetry (William Carlos Williams was a favorite). She contributed to Nightingale’s highly regarded literary magazine. While inhabiting that rarefied space of being both a great talent and intellectual, she was also incredibly open and loving. She radiated warmth.
Though we lost touch after graduation, Facebook helped us reconnect. Not long after my ill-fated move to L.A. three years ago, she was one of the first people to reach out to me. When we met for dinner, the time apart disappeared instantly as we shared everything about our lives past and present. I felt the same ease and joy in Molly’s company that I had in high school, deeply thankful to have her back in my life.
It was only at the end of the meal, almost as an aside, that Molly revealed she had metastatic breast cancer. I was knocked back. How could this gorgeous, vibrant woman be in the midst of fighting for her life? She spoke about it matter of factly and briefly, insisting I tell her more about how I came to be on the West Coast. I admitted that I had been struggling with depression and thoughts of hurting myself. She hugged me tightly and made me promise to call her if those thoughts ever returned. Just a few months later when that happened, Molly did so much more than pick up the phone.
In the middle of a weekday afternoon, she dropped everything to take me to hospital, staying by my side in the emergency room for hours until I was transferred — around midnight — to a psychiatric hospital outside of L.A. During that horrendous week, Molly visited me, brought me things from home and stayed in constant communication with my family. After I was discharged, she texted and called daily, giving me strength and hope when I had none of my own. Molly called me courageous. When I expressed my profound gratitude for all that she had done, she said with love—
“Thank you for allowing me to be there.”
That was Molly.
Even though both of my parents died of cancer, losing Molly to this horrible disease feels more unfair, more difficult to fathom. Mom and Dad’s declines were swift once their cancer metastasized, devastating but expected. Molly was already stage 3 when we reconnected three years ago. Treating it like a chronic condition, she attacked it ferociously from all angles, documenting her journey on her blog and Instagram. Last year, she appeared in a New York Fashion Week show benefitting Cancerland. I was fortunate to be in the audience, watching her glide down the catwalk with such power and beauty and never imagining that was to be the last time I would see her.
I will always be grateful for the tremendous blessing of Molly’s friendship. Her light will never be extinguished for all of us who knew and loved her. Rest in peace, my dear friend. You will reside in my heart forever.
