Page 96 - Philly Girl

80 Janice Shapiro

Regretfully, I have not always been there for Janet. I see
now that I could be undependable and unreliable. I have
changed over the years. My friends Janet and Bonnie taught
me the importance of being dependable and reliable. I came
to recognize that excuses, and hemming and hawing, are not
adult behavior. I was frequently unavailable for my friends,
routinely putting work and my kids before everything and
everyone else. I never watched Janet’s children during a fam-
ily crisis, when her father died suddenly on a cruise ship in
Morocco—and the Moroccan government wouldn’t let the
family recover the body.
Eventually, we identified certain issues that had divided
us: judgmentalism, criticism, competitiveness, status, differ-
ing intimacy needs. It took 10 years, way before my cancer
diagnosis, to work out all of the details of what went wrong.
Our friendship deepened dramatically and was cemented
from then on.
For the last three years, she has accompanied me to my
wig stylist every month. We continued to talk about all those
issues that we had not previously addressed. At this point, we
have discussed and forgiven each other everything.
We sit in a quiet, private room and we tell each other the
truth. Janet writes down my requests for my memorial on
her yellow pad and I know it will be exactly as I wish. I can
always depend on my dear Janet.