Here’s my eulogy: ‘My friend was… my friend’

My friend died and broke my heart. Yes, she was Of Age (she’d hate me to give it away) and yes, she was sick.

But that doesn’t stop my tears. I knew it was the last time I was seeing her when I went to visit after cancer knocked on her door.

I thought we’d sit on her enormous stoep with her soft couches, loooong table and millions of plants, sipping wine and laughing.

We didn’t – and I knew she was sick. Wine became tea I made because she got up with difficulty.

ALSO READ: ‘Real men’, it’s up to you, not women

The stoep became her dark lounge where she could rest in her chair with the TV remote close by. But we did laugh.

She remembered bumping her car after our liquid lunch in Melville “but the young man was hunky and forgave this ‘tannie’”, she rolls her eyes.

She remembered the day she introduced me to watermelon tea from Holland and we drank a whole three pots because I just couldn’t get enough.

“I never could track anymore of that tea down,” she tells me now while I concoct a ginger and paw-paw cuppa “that I can at least taste after chemo, please”.

In fact, tea was our comfort. I got peach tea leaves with a designer sieve one birthday – “for those pots we must drink the old-fashioned way”, she insisted.

And it was over a cup of exotic hibiscus blossoms that she confessed she used her very first journo salary cheque for a nosejob.

Instantly the photo album came out so I could see her “old nose really was too big”.

I didn’t argue; her new, pert nose aged as well as she did.

It was over a more mundane chamomile pot that she got me to admit “no, that man didn’t abuse you; much more… you said no”.

READ MORE: #MeToo: A true story

And the turmeric spice blend led to a life lesson about appreciating my mom. See, hers just died and she beautifully penned an essay about her loss.

That essay started with “My mom was…” and described an eccentric, quirky, strong spirit no man could resist.

And, thanks to my friend, when my mom died, my eulogy started with “My mom was…”, describing an opinionated, manipulative, stubborn, but wonderfully loving woman who was our core.

So, Reinet, here’s my eulogy, hard as it is: “My friend was… my friend.”