Memorial

We invited the couple to our first dinner party in Stuttgart. Dinner was a challenge since I only had an electric coil and hot plate to cook with. The year was 1962.

He was a trumpet player along with my husband in an Army band. She was a German who would become his wife.

I thought she was the most beautiful woman, I'd ever seen with her white hair. Although she bleached it, her own color was so blond that roots never showed.

In Stuttgart she and I would do things on some Mondays, her day off. It could be a four-fruit tart and coffee in a tea room, a museum or just girl-chat in her room provided by her boss who owned the hair dressing salon where she worked. She turned me into a redhead.

She hated peanut butter and peanut butter cookies. When WWII ended, American soldiers had given her some and she ate so much was sick putting it off for life. It made me think of what her early life must have been like.

When one night we were late getting home, we made up a story for our husbands about flying to Frankfort and back. The next day we confessed we had really gone to the top of the TV tower over looking Stuttgart, but since we'd never flown, we decided to make the story a reality.

We then took our first flight together to Frankfort. Fog rolled in and we had to train back to Stuttgart. Our husbands were worried. We were not in their best graces.

We played MauMau, a rather stupid game, men against women first on a holiday together in Italy and then regularly when we got together. She and I developed a cheating system far more sophisticated than the boys who took to hiding cards in their clothes. It was only recently, decades later, that because of a blog, her husband found out.

She gave me one of the suits she's made: a green/black watch skirt and a matching green boiled wool top. I kept it for years and always felt so classic whenever I wore it.

We rode to Munich together in my Triumph Spitfire so she could get her VISA at the American Embassy as the bride of the trumpet player. Outside the city we were able to pick up a guide to direct us to the embassy. She was crammed into the shelf of the back of the sports car while the long-legged guide took her seat. Fortunately it was a short ride.

It's been decades of friendship that continued after the end of our Army days that took had us to Washington, D.C, Florida, Boston, Colorado, back to Germany and finally to Nice.

We had daughters at the same time. On one visit my daughter looked at her daughter on the potty and decided being trained was a good idea.

I learned about microwaves and trash compactors from her just as they were being introduced. My home has German sandwich boards because I thought hers were such a good idea. I bought new ones for our Argelès apartment when I was in Stuttgart two years ago. She was in my mind as I walked past places we'd hung out together.

She fed me my first artichoke. I never eat them without thinking about her.

When she returned to Germany for her father's funeral and I was living in Switzerland, we met up. Her husband said I was his sister to convince them to put a cot in the room. We had a grown-up slumber party in the hotel room.

We visited the base where our men had been stationed, amazed that they let us on with so little questioning. It was during the Gulf War.

I stayed with them when I had business in Colorado Springs during the 70s when they were living there. It gave us a chance to catch up. With her and her husband we went to an Indian gathering, watched their dancing and ate fried bread.

We did lose touch for a while. I thought they had moved to Arizona so I telephoned every one by their name in the State. What I didn't know is that they were in Oregon.

Then, thanks to Facebook, there was a message they were looking for me. It only lasted a few hours, but we met up in Nice. They were on a world cruise and their ship docked. We drove from Argelès. She was still beautiful.

An email this morning from the husband told me of her last few days, her last few minutes. She died by choice with dignity and a bit of humor. Sharing those moments with me was a great gift as our friendship has been.