Reading A Greeting Card Sent After She Was Gone

I have been looking since early September, 2011 for a greeting card that my best friend Virginia Woerner sent to me. It was a Jewish New Year’s card and I received one from her for over sixty years. I also received birthday cards and anniversary cards too. This year on June 21st, for the first time in sixty years, I will receive no card.She passed away in the first week of November 2011 at age eighty-two. We had not seen each other for years; but we kept in touch through the old fashion way of talking on the phone. She did not have computer, I urged her to get one and so we talked often by phone. We also wrote notes to each other and sent cards. The last card she sent me was on or about November 29th and I had saved it because it was so beautifully written. I put it away so good, that I could not find it. Today, while cleaning out some papers, it fell on the floor and it must have been in a booklet or folder. There it was before my tearing eyes and I felt blessed to have found it, after looking for it everywhere for seven months. It is appropriate that it appeared a few days before my birthday and I was just saying to my husband, that it would be the first time in over sixty years; I would receive none from her. On it she wrote these exact words. “Hope this finds you well and I want you to know how much I enjoy your mailings to me. Everyone should have one person in their life like you. Over the years, you have kept in touch and you’ll never know how your notes have come whenever I have been low and the pictures you send of your grandchildren and the gift of writing has not left you. I appreciate your friendship and my wish for you is health and happiness to you and yours in the New Year. (I believe in my heart now, she knew in her heart, that this would be the last card she would send to me, though I had no clue as to her being sick then.) Peace, Love and Blessings and Love and Hugs. Virginia.” Every month or so, I would print off my writings from the Hunt Valley-Cockeysville Patch online site and send them to her along with newer photos of my two younger grandchildren. Wow, it was a blessing to read this again and I felt so lucky to find it. It falling out of a booklet onto the floor, here in my home office was like a sign from her acknowledging my coming birthday. We always compared notes on our grandchildren and their advancing ages and smartness and of course, beauty. I first met her when she became my hairdresser in about 1952 or so.She actually moved in an apartment across the street from where I lived with my parents, until I got married. We connected as friends and stayed that way until her passing. She came to my son’s Bar Mitzvah and my daughter’s wedding and when Mom died too. She did my mom’s hair and mine and Mom use to say that Virginia had ‘golden hands.’ She also had a golden heart that was generous and loving. Good friends are hard to come by and to continue on being devoted friends with someone for so many years is somewhat rare. I gave a eulogy at her memorial service the Sunday after she passed away so quickly. The last time we spoke on the phone, I said “I love you Virginia, “she said “I love you Elita.” We had often said of the great feelings we had for one another; perhaps we never said it on the phone, I love you. We always wrote that in all the cards, we sent to one another. When my two younger grandchildren were born years ago, she always sent them a card and a ten dollar bill for each and every birthday and for Chanukah time. She had never met them, but she loved them, because they were mine. My grandson would tell me that your friend Virginia sent him and his sister a gift. He thought that neat, I told him, it was because she loved me and therefore loved him and his sister. He thought that neat too. She became a first time grandmother when she was seventy-two and a half (her words to me.) She said “I am probably the oldest first time grandmother in Baltimore County.” I said “so what, you are one and that is the most wonderful thing for you.” She loved her granddaughter Jessica and was always bragging about her beauty and intelligence. It is a blessing when you connect with a person and you stay informed with them and love them for all these years. I miss her and on a coming Thursday, when it is my 82nd birthday, I know through me finding her last card from September 2011, this is a signal that she remembers and she is wishing me well as she and I did to each other for sixty years. On July 20th when it would have been her eighty-seventh birthday, I will be sending her a love flare of an indication that I have not or will never forget her for the rest of my life. A friendship like we had between two young girls who became two young women and who became two senior citizens, is as my friend Steven Behr in Washington State calls us, active adults, rare. She was active when she was single and liked to race cars which was unusual for a woman then and when she married she made ceramic bowls and plates and ornaments. She had a kiln in her home and I was the recipient of one when I was married for twenty years. She made me a beautiful vase celebrating the anniversary. It sits on a shelf in my family room and when I dust it off weekly, I see her lovely face bringing it to me. A few years ago, she made me a silver necklace with a charm. She did jewelry making too and it sits draped over a large lamp as a decoration. I like it that way, rather than wearing it. It is like a medium size medal, as a testimonial to our friendship. When my grandson was born, she bought me a large leather, brown and beautiful photo album for a grand mom to keep in her purse and it came with a nice message and was from Borders bookstore. For Christmas every year, I sent her unusual and different presents. One year, I sent her subscription to a health magazine, the next year to Redbook magazine and another year a pair of long and sexy earrings for her eightieth birthday. I invited her out to dinner many times, but she declined and said next time she would go. The next time is gone and so is she, but my memories of a good friend will be a delightful mountain that she and I climbed from a very low hill. It is and was the highest height two ladies (formerly young women) could have ascended and we both reached the pinnacle and the zenith and stayed there for these many years, together. I cried when I found her last card/note to me; but it was more a bit of tears of happiness that ended my search for this card and I had found it right before my birthday. So it was as if, she was still here and remembered the date and had sent it to me by an unusual manner. It got here, I received it and I will never forget her and our sincere and loving friendship. She said everyone in their life should have a person like me. Well, I say, everyone in their life should have a person like her. She did and I did and for that, we both were blessed. I framed her card to me from September and it hangs on a place of honor on my wall in my home office. Virginia, you always will be in my heart and I will never forget you. elita sohmer clayman