31/366: Lise

Wicked funny, stupendously creative, relentlessly cynical. More than a seminal influence, a lifeline in my abused adolescence. Introduced me to Jung, Summerhill, Ochs. At eighteen, she disappeared without a word. Now that she’s back, I see her demons more clearly. I can’t help but love her, but I can’t save her.

30/366: Janine

In high school, she was a Christian when it wasn’t cool, but she never made a big deal about it. We shared a passion for rock-and-roll. Several years ago, after her husband had died, she moved back to Michigan with her son. We still have faith in the perfect guitar solo.

29/366: Rosa

She comprises a lovely potpourri of black, white, and American Indian. In high school, we’d sit in a stairwell to practice the Kyrie from Fauré’s Requiem; she, tenor; I, alto. The guidance counselor advised her, upon graduation, to seek work as a “domestic.” She earned her Ph.D. a few years ago.

Ch Golly G's Kicks Sky Hi: June 28, 1994–January 29, 2008

Kicks died in my arms this morning at 6:25 a.m.

She had started feeling poorly yesterday afternoon, and when I took her to the vet, an x-ray showed a new growth in her abdomen and other signs that the cancer had spread. She did not seem to be in distress, just generally less enthisiastic about the world than usual. The vet took some blood, and the plan was to wait to see what those tests showed and to see how she was feeling the next day before making any decisions.

We went to bed early (she hopped up on the bed like she always does), and during the night I heard her occasionally waking, breathing heavily, and then falling back asleep. At around 5:00, her breathing became more labored, and I began to realize that I would probably have to euthanize her soon. Over the next hour, she became increasingly weak, and I made plans for a friend to come over so I could take her to an emergency vet (I didn't even want to wait until my vet's office opened).

I sat with her on the bed and pulled her into my lap. I stroked her and told her how incredibly grateful I am to have had her in my life for the past five and a half years. I told her that it was okay to go, that I would be all right and that she wasn't really leaving me because we would always be together. I thanked her over and over for giving me all the joy and happiness and love she has shown me in our brief time together.

After a little bit, her breathing became lighter and shallower, until it just quietly stopped and I saw the light fade from her eyes.

I looked up into the air above the bed and said, "Goodbye, my girl."

I have known for some months now that this was imminent, and although I have been saying over and over that I didn't know how I was going to get through it, I began to realize that Kicks herself has been showing me how all along: wag your tail, be happy, and make the most of today. When you don't feel so great any more, lie down in someone's arms. When it's time to go, go knowing that those you have left behind have been enriched by your love.

28/366: Marnelle

In high school, she would quietly find me to give me the notebook, the lunch bag, the wallet I’d carelessly left somewhere. I was scattered; she was contained. Next to her tranquil grace, I felt large, clumsy, noisy. A continent away now, she is still in my life, noticing the details.

27/366: Allen

I was seventeen, he sixteen. I picked him for his laconic intensity, his athletic body, his eternally boyish good looks, his sexual passion. Shortly after we graduated, his younger brother killed himself with his dad’s shotgun. He always felt he should have saved him. His anger still burns those around him.

26/366: John

In the sweat lodge, I find myself sobbing uncontrollably, the hurt so deep it anneals, changing me into something else. Afterward, he smudges me with smoke from the fire. “These Grandfather rocks can hold anything that you have brought here. Leave it with them.” I still have the wild turkey feather.

25/366: Mary Begay

She brought us to a Healing Way. We sat in the hogan, dusk to dawn. At sunrise, she led us outside, showed us the lightening sky. “You call it the Milky Way,” she said. “We call it the Corn Road. The Corn Man and the Corn Woman walk there, scattering pollen.”

24/366: Hilary

After months of flirting, the moment came. He admonished me about not bringing birth control. “You should take care of yourself,” he said. I got up and dressed without a word. “What are you doing?” The answer was so obvious, I had to laugh as I closed the door behind me.

23/366: George

1977. Antigua, Guatemala. After a rainstorm, a gorgeous black man, 10 years older, falls into step beside me. He accompanies me to the post office. After three days and nights together, he follows me to Guatemala City. Back in New York, everything is different. He won’t hold my hand in public.

22/366: Jean-Paul

He showed me how to eat an overripe mango: cut off the end, slurp out the ambrosia. One sunset, we dangled our legs over the edge of the Grand Canyon. “This flute is a spirit catcher.” How corny, I thought. But below us, a hawk soared, reflecting the last golden rays.

21/366: Teresa Natoni

She made the spider-shaped turquoise pin on my denim jacket. She told me the story of Spider Woman, how she brought weaving to the Diné long ago. I helped cull her Churro, vaccinating the lambs over their deafening protests. The pin wasn’t a gift. I am belagana, and she’s no fool.

20/366: Gary Henry

I watched as he carefully wrapped a tiny, serrated sliver of metal around the brilliant blue stone. The turquoise in my ring keeps company with little silver feathers. In Canyon de Chelly, some of the Diné, like the ancestors, still farm the bottom. He signs his work with just his initials.

19/366: Robert

A have-not from inner-city Detroit, he’s doing yard work now, getting what he can. Robert’s from the ’hood, where there are no trees. He says, “Trees are a hundred feet high, a hundred feet deep, and have ten thousand children.” He might be a player, but he always leaves me smiling.

18/366: Rick

I dreamed that he was the man of my dreams, but I think he might be something better. Sometimes the puzzle pieces that look like a perfect match in the box don’t fit when you try to put them together. I’ll never know for sure, but I’d rather keep him close.

17/366: Jani

Moving with grace, always understanding, drawing in love and warmth and giving it out again. She’s your favorite spot under your warmest quilt, the fire in the fireplace on a cold, rainy day. No secret is too dark for her to bear, hold close. And she makes a mean puff pastry.

16/366: Karen

By the time we were sixteen, we had been best friends since we were twelve. “Every once in a while,” she said, “you have to check in and ask yourself honestly, ‘Is this who I really am?” Forty years later, we are still asking. We remind each other of the answer.

15/366: Greg Goodwin

The neighborhood ringleader, he’d collect other boys, follow me home from the bus stop, throwing pebbles that stung my legs. I ignored them, tears springing, kept walking without turning around. Twenty years later, I ran into him on a city street. He confessed his crush, though not in so many words.

14/366: John Ratigan

The kid next door picked on me relentlessly, egged on by his older friend. One day, I’d had enough. I got up, walked toward him. He continued to taunt. I decked him. Clocked him good, bloodied his nose. His mother’s complaints stung him more than the blow. I had my justice.

13/366: Sue Salta

One summer, we met at the pool every day, made forts in the woods. I was hoping for another best friend, like the ones whom I’d lost when we’d moved. Then we entered junior high school, parted ways. Last memory of her: 12th grade, front row in class, seven months pregnant.

12/366: Kyle

Horse-crazy tweens, we collected equine figurines and held jumping shows, spending hours making the tiny ribbons we awarded to each other’s mounts. We never got near a horse, but still we dreamed. Then she discovered boys, cigarettes, beer. I saw her at her mom’s funeral last year. Now her daughter rides.

11/366: Kathy Davis

My sister’s best friend was first to notice me as a person. She would spend hours brushing my hair, talking to me. Now she remains my spiritual guide, a second sister. We will always be related, if not by blood, then by history, and by love. To this day, she understands.

10/366: Frederick

Coming after me, up the stairs. I back away on hands and feet, trying to kick. Grabs me, tries to turn me over his knee. My brother puts him in a Marine headlock. My sister yells at him. Usually, though, they’re not there, and I am alone, to fight for myself.

9/366: Billy Smith

First boyfriend. Second grade. The bluest eyes, the curliest black hair. Billy Smith was a catch, and as a couple we were notorious. We sat under the big tree on the playground and kissed. On the lips. Our classmates squealed and giggled. In those days of innocence, this was high romance.

8/366: Carmel Lamp

Because of her, I thought best friends were always supposed to live next door. Her father grew blue irises that smelled like grape candy. She was a fascinating mix of American, Dutch, Latin, German, and possibly American Indian. Summer or winter, we were always together. “Thick as thieves,” said my dad.

7/366: Mrs. Milstead

After twenty years, I went back to the old neighborhood and knocked on her door. She came to the porch and paused briefly, raised a hand to her face. "Oh, honey," she said, once she'd regained her composure, "for a moment, seeing you standing there, I thought you were your mother."

6/366: Mr. Milstead

He called me “fussbudget.” He handmade his kids’ Halloween costumes. Polly’s green witch nose, fashioned from putty and paint, both captivated and unnerved us. Hanging over their mantle was a painting of a big man with a small child in a boat, the rower’s rough hands wrapped protectively around the oar.

5/366: Mrs. MacMillan

She thought I was Jewish, so I was passed over for bus monitor, picked on for not cleaning up fast enough, humiliated in class. She met with my parents because I had “reading problems”: I was reading two grades ahead. One Sunday, she saw my mother at Mass, and everything changed.

4/366: Aunt Bea

Unlike the TV character, a hard-bitten New Yorker. Moved in next door with her four kids once she learned her brother’s wife would die from the cancer. Brusque. Talked fast. But she held that house together when it seemed it would fall apart, brick by brick, because of the sadness inside.

3/366: Father Yanoni

Maybe because he was Italian, this particular priest was like family. One afternoon he watched me draw in the rec room. The usual child’s landscape: green grass, blue sky, yellow sun. “See how precise she is,” he said, “careful to draw each ray, long and then short, just so.” I beamed.

2/366: Emily

My best friend lived next door. We were six, seven, eight together. One day we swapped our winter coats, pulled the hoods over our heads, and went into each other’s kitchens to see if we could trick our mothers. They might even have been fooled. We were thrilled with our subterfuge.

1/366: Marianne

During a calamitous week of arrangements for our father’s funeral, amid a grief we have no time to recognize, she faces me in our parents’ living room: “I’ve always thought of you as just my little sister, but now I realize that you have grown into a very cool, capable woman.”