A friend is gone.

We've lost another friend.

A blastoma her husband called it. A cancer so fast spreading it has a graphic nickname that tells all. A slimy, invading, evil tumor in her brain that has killed her within a year and left her husband without his life partner.

Let me salute him. She died at home with her loved ones and friends at her side. He kept her with him, caring for her and giving her the last few minutes of her life in her own beloved surroundings.

No, I didn't know her really well. Yes, I spent an overnight as her guest, welcomed in her home. They were guests in our home as well. We did business together and plotted and planned our lives and finances together. We shared food at various tables and on many occasions. Business meetings and information gathering sessions. We did not go shopping or travel together, but she and her husband are very much like Dick and I, always just trying to get ahead as best we can and we were linked. I feel such a loss and sadness.

I would have liked to have known her better, but she was what I thought of as 'very British' and did not show much emotion, affection or sentimentality. We shared some experiences that were not conducive to bonds of close girl friendship, but those experiences bonded us all the same.

It is because of her and her husband's associates that our finances are in as good a shape as they are. It is with her help that my taxes have been done each year. We have grown and evolved because of her guidance and good work. She was a strong woman that any one of us could look up to and learn from. She wasn't sometimes dealt the best of hands herself in life, but was always able to put order to ours. I never felt alone in my troubles knowing that this couple was there.

It is unfathomable that that person no longer walks this earth. I can no longer pick up the phone and hear her clipped greeting. I can no longer affectionately giggle about her British palate and taste. Never again will we share a table, she ordering eggs and bacon, me asking for bacon and eggs.

I will think of her often.