For the first time today Babu talked of Zosh’s passing. Zosh is Sophie’s nickname. You see her written about all over Babu’s journals. She remained friends with Zosh for all the years leading up to her death. Zosh only died a year or two ago. Babu didn’t get out to see her best friend much in the final years but got a few chances to right before she passed. It was strange, Zosh’s brother came to visit and took Babu to see Zosh and just a few days later he was gone. Not long after that, Babu went to see Zosh again, the family reached out and invited her, and a few days after that visit Zosh was gone, too. Babu went to too many funerals in a short time.
I remember feeling the weight of it in my heart. Friends for so long and now one is gone. I thought over how I would be a support to Babu, what I would say. Babu didn’t seem to need it, she was as stoic as stone. I expected something else at the time but here is Babu, processing a little, it seems. I know she is letting something out every time she would read a passage with her in it, there are many, remember, and she would say in one long breathy sigh:
Zosh, she was my best friend.
Since writing this post I found SO MANY more vintage photos.
I wish this one wasn’t blurry, I think it’s my favorite of her!
I love her look!
transcribingmemory 
Your post reminded me of what the actress Bette Davis once said “Old age is no place for sissies.” So true.
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Ha! Well, she’s no sissy for sure!!
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Do you ever watch old movies with her? I used to watch them with my Mom and we listened to “her” music. I could see how it brought her back to times she had as a young person. When she had her stroke right before she died, we played her music in the hospital room all the time. She couldn’t speak but she heard, I know she did.
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I don’t usually. She is so frustrated by how little she is seeing and hearing these days that I don’t like to force it but I showed her some clips of “The Continental” dance from “The Gay Wedding” and she was over the moon! I think I’ll try more clips that I can show her from my computer. She, of course, can’t get behind on the paper! 🙂
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as she leaned over Zosh’s coffin, she kissed her fingers and placed them on her best friend’s cheek… “see you around toots.” in that moment, Babu was young again. i imagine her mind and heart traveled back through time to some happy moment… as if she was just saying goodnight to her friend after she walked home some warm summer evening. ❤️
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Or ice skated in bemis on New Year’s Eve in the snow…
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