For Jaimee

Photo courtesy of Adam Greene

Today I celebrated my 37th birthday and lost a friend to complications from bile duct cancer. Jaimee was also 37 years old and lived here in New York until her cancer took her to Ohio for treatment and recuperation with her family. Just a year ago she found out there was something wrong. She was jaundiced and had sought out some medical advice before the holidays. It was early January when she announced she had cancer and would be staying with her mom until things were stable. She was back in New York last summer which was the last time I saw her and we chatted about my pregnancy and caught up about her new cookbook which had finally been published. It was a happy time and I remember thinking she must be so relieved to be home. Even without family around, for most of us this city is home. It welcomes us back and offers so much for the taking. And I think for Jaimee that was equally true. Strangely, this last encounter was actually a dinner party honoring another friend, Patrick, who had died from cancer the year before. Patrick's death at 25 from testicular cancer was one of those tragedies you just don't get over. He was so young and so full of promise that it still feels like the world was robbed of something great. It just does. Nevertheless, this breezy June evening at our mutual friend Molly's apartment in Astoria was a nice evening with friends and Jaimee was her usual bubbly self even if the physical strain of treatment and multiple surgeries had taken some of her strength. We met a handful of years ago through Molly, a fellow baker and co-worker of Jaimee's from their days at Amy's Bread in Hell's Kitchen. It was really through that network of friends and our Thanksgiving meals at Molly's that I got to know Jaimee. She always entertained the kids so well and had funny little anecdotes as only a single girl in the city can share. Whenever I think of her, that smile is the first thing that registers. She had a glint in her eyes and a beautiful, wide smile. That was Jaimee and I will miss her dearly.

Perhaps it's the flash of my own mortality on this birthday, but I can't help but feel that life is too precious. How do any of us carry on when there is no promise that we get another day? And what does it mean to leave children as your legacy? I used to think that if I could just have kids first before dying that I would feel a sort of relief or complacency about death. But that's not true any more. Now I'm greedy. I want to see these children grow and live full lives, and I want to be the one to help them when they too enter the sacred world of motherhood. I want it all. Just like I wanted that for Jaimee. But that wasn't to be. She is gone and this connection I have to her is engrained on my birthday for years to come. So that's what I will do. I will honor Jaimee every year with the thought that life is short--too short sometimes. And then I'll blow out my candles.