The Last Word On Nothing

From the moment I met her, I knew that Donni Reddington would be a Fun Friend. A Fun Friend is someone who brings the party and is always game. A fun friend sings out loud to the radio and breaks into dance without ever worrying about looking foolish. Donni was all of those things and more. She would hoot and holler while mountain biking and she had a special connection with her animals — horses and dogs and even a bearded dragon. 

Our friendship revolved around doing things — skate skiing and hiking and mountain biking and drinking beer. When we went adventuring, we generally just tried to have as much fun as our dogs. We also talked about work and marriage and aging parents and the weird shit that perimenopause was inflicting on our bodies. 

I only knew Donni a few years, and with our busy lives we didn’t get together as often as we wanted. But every time we did, it was a blast. Shortly after Christmas, she confided to me that she had just been diagnosed with cancer for the sixth (!!) time in something like 12 years. I hadn’t known her history. She seemed so full of health and vigor, it was hard to believe. 

In January and February, we had a couple of long phone calls and she told me that her doctors were still adjusting the treatment plan, but she expected to be going to Denver for surgery, probably in June or July. My sister works at the hospital where the surgery would happen, and she said she’d let me know when she had dates. In late February, she texted me that her doctors were readjusting her treatment plan, because her energy was so depleted. 

That was the last I heard from her. She was focused on dealing with the cancer, and I didn’t want to intrude. Our friendship was still relatively new, and she had a vast network of friends and family who were supporting her. I wanted to give her space. I thought of her often, but I wouldn’t beg for updates. If she wanted me in her circle during this time, she would let me know. 

At the beginning of May, my phone randomly made a video for me, “Early Moments Together,” which featured photos of Donni and me doing fun things, set to cheesy music. It was as if my stupid phone knew I’d been thinking of her, yearning for one of our outings. I sent it to her with a note, Miss you.

A few weeks later, I texted again, just to say I was thinking of her. I didn’t expect an answer, but I longed for one anyway. It occurred to me that if her health had taken a turn for the worse, I had no way of knowing. I met her husband once or twice in passing, but I didn’t know him and we had no mutual friends. (She had just moved to Colorado when we met.) 

Last week, I scoured her social media feeds, which had no updates. So I did an internet search. Which is how I found a Go Fund Me for her. The update at the top of the page broke me. Donni died April 1. She’d been dead two months by the time I found out, and in that time I had missed both of her memorials — the one here in Colorado and the one in the Methow Valley where she was deeply loved by the community.

It was nobody’s fault, but I was on the outside looking in, and in addition to the grief of losing her, I felt a second loss: the possibility of our friendship growing into what it was on the verge of becoming. Sometimes you meet someone and immediately know that you’re going to be friends. That’s what I felt with Donni. We were just getting started.  

She was just getting started. She had so much more living to do. Her death feels so abrupt. This isn’t how this story was supposed to end.

But I don’t get to chose the ending, so instead I remember how joyful Donni was and embrace the memory of having been euphoric with her for a few moments in time. 

I contemplate how she would want to be remembered, and I think it’s something like the ending to David Budbill’s poem, Tomorrow.  

Come on, Sweetheart,
let’s go dancing
while we still 
have feet. 

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*Special thanks to Greg Hanscom for introducing me to Budbill’s poem some years ago, after I’d lost a cherished loved one.