My friend Norma

Wednesday, while waiting for an afternoon sentencing in Hennepin county, I was wandering through the Ridgedale Shopping Center, killing time. I walked into a random gift shop and while wandering through the aisles, I noticed a wall hanging which proclaimed:
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, champagne in one hand – strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming ‘Woo hoo – what a ride!’"
And I immediately thought of my friend, Norma. Because if anything could describe her philosophy of living, this is it. Norma died of brain cancer on November 9, 2000. Seven years ago, tomorrow. But if ever there was a well lived life, it was most certainly hers. Norma grew up in the Twin Cities, during the 50's, the child of affluent parents. She was apparently a handful for her parents as a teenager. When she was finally stopped at a road block, driving the first Porsche roadster to find its way to Minnesota, the Hennepin County Sheriff, tired of complaining to her long suffering parents, reportedly said, "Dammit Norma, am I going to have to put you in jail to get you to stop racing that car around the county" She snapped back that she was just trying to find out how fast the damned thing went and that as soon as she figured that out she wouldn’t need to do it anymore. The Sheriff reportedly sighed and climbed in with her and together they discovered the top end of the Porsche.
From her pictures it is obvious that she was a beautiful young woman and eventually found her way to New York City and became a beautician. Her career flourished and among her eventual customers was a newly wed Jackie Bouvier Kennedy. Jackie found that Norma now aspired to become an interior decorator and she encouraged her both emotionally and financially. She opened her own design studio and did well with it, and this was how she met her husband, an architectural engineer. Many of you have walked through buildings designed by her husband in a number of major cities. They traveled the world and, although her husband did not support her in her career efforts, she continued to do well, dividing her time between the work that she loved and the children that she loved and the husband who tolerated her "silliness".
They traveled to the Orient, and on the eve of the declaration of hostilities by the United States against North Vietnam, she found herself racing through the countryside in a blacked out car, trying to reach a ship at the coast and safety at sea. Stopped by Vietnamese Security Police, she knelt next to her husband with a sub-machine gun pressed against the back of her head waiting to be executed until the driver, a family friend was able to convince the police with fast talk and all their money that she and her husband were actually Swedish nationals. "The sonofabitch was standing there with all our cash, and my wedding ring in his hand, looking at my passport and he said, the Swedish people can go. If I would have had a gun, I'd of killed him myself" Norma was a little . . . . .spunky. . . . . .
Her husband eventually died and she met "Frank", a true pirate of commerce and a real scoundrel, who loved Norma very much, treated her like a queen and although they never married, they were together and inseparable until he died in 1997 of cancer, well, except for those two years he did in prison over a misunderstanding about some heavy equipment . . . ..
Norma was not an acquaintance. She was my friend, and my wife’s friend. We took her to dance performances, musicals and stage shows, and restaurants. We drank good whiskey, fine wine and laid on the "ultra king-sized" bed in her luxury apartment and rolled around laughing over dumb jokes and watching taped performances by her favorite opera singers sometimes until 3 or 4 in the morning. When we discovered that she had cancer, we were crushed and visited her at the hospice several times each week until the morning that the staff called to let us know she was gone. At her instruction, they called us before they called her family and I have never really known why. My own mother’s death left me numb and filled with helpless hatred. Norma’s felt like a blow to the stomach.
After the funeral, her son came to me and gave me an envelope, and it is what was in that envelope that I want to share with you. It was a letter from Norma, written with the help of a hospice staff person. Here in part, is what it said:
"Dearest Jamie:
I asked Mary to help me with this letter because I cannot get my hands to work the keys of my damned typewriter anymore. I was laying here thinking about my life and I looked at the wall hanging that you brought me, the one about skidding into death sideways, yelling woo hoo, what a ride! And I thought about how I have lived my life, and the things I have seen and done, the laughter and the tears and I smiled because by God, I have lived! You know that I am not angry that I am ill. I certainly do not blame God for my cancer, as has been suggested by that nice, but simple-minded little Christian lady who comes by every day to see if I want her to read the Bible to me. I have considered taking the Bible from her and beating her to death with it. But I am too weak now so I just shake my head and she goes away. You know how I feel about religion and all the so-called, sanctimonious "Christians" who judge first and only extend a helping had when they are sure somebody is watching. I am much more inclined to see God as the Indians do, a Great Spirit who is a living and loving part of everything around us, including you and me. I just believe that my number finally came up, and as you know, I have been close before but escaped death, and now its just my time. I will become part of that spirit and we will see what we shall see.
I am glad, as I look back on life that I did not leave it in the box, to be conserved, guarded, taken out like fine china, only when important company comes to call. Like you, I have felt the damp cool air from a duck blind at dawn. I have heard the great jazz musicians create magic from a table six feet away. I have watched my children cry their way into life and I have smelled the cold sweat of fear, racing through the night in Vietnam trying to reach the coast before being captured and shot as spies. I sat crying out in terror watching my friend Jackie crawling across the back of a limousine in Texas trying to reach of piece of her dying husband’s skull. Jack, with his boisterous manners and sparkling eyes, always ready to fire up a good cigar or start a rough and tumble football game with anyone around. I have built businesses with my own two hands, and I have felt the passion and excitement of loving one man, while being a dutiful wife to another who never really loved me, but tried his best to make me "comfortable". His work was his passion. I wanted my passion in another form.
One of the things that I have loved about you is that you really don’t care much what others think of you, as long as you are doing what you believe is the right thing to take care of those of us who are lucky enough to become your "people". I agree totally with that philosophy. Too many people live in terror of what others think of them, and in the process never let their spirits soar. They will never know what its like to jump out of an airplane hoping their chute will open. To run naked through the sand to crash into the surf at dawn. To drive a nasty hot car with the top down as fast as it will go with the wind whipping your hair. I do not know if the Great Spirit will let us come here again. But if this is it, if we are only going to be here once, then we should live every day as if it is the only day. We should drink the wine, dance to the music, make love under a soft moon in new mown grass and jump into life with both feet and yell as loud as we can, "Hey, here I am you bastards, come and get me if you can!"
Thank you and Lynne for all you have done to make an old woman feel young again. Thank you for your love, the way your eyes twinkle when you tell all your stories and make me laugh till it hurts. You made me remember better days. You made me feel that you could see past the wrinkles and see the woman I was at 40, in my prime with a good set of legs and a rear end as tight as a drum head and with 40 years of experience under my belt. I know that I need never fear that you will not live your life. But for me, take the time, to tell those you care about to get up off their duffs and live! Its too soon over and the last thing you want to have people say at your funeral is, "Well, she was always a careful soul."
I love you both and always will.
Norma
So, as I sit here with a glass of the last bottle of bourbon we ever shared, and tears in my eyes, I offer a toast to my good friend Norma and I have to ask, as Norma often did, "What the hell is there left to say?"