I couldn’t wait to tell Elizabeth.

I’d just left a big-honcho media party.

Half the point of going to these things was the who-did-you-see, who-said-what postmortem with my pal.

And tonight, that guy had greeted me with a flirty kiss on the lips!

Elizabeth wouldn’t be home.

She’d been dead since April.

Elizabeth was neither a smoker nor a drinker, two of the big risk factors for this particular cancer.

“Leave it to me to get the barfly disease!”

she said when she called last January to tell me.

I laughed, because how could I not?

It was better than throwing up, which I did when I got off the phone.

Yet even as I was retching, it occurred to me: I’m freakin' lucky.

The day after hearing the news, I told Elizabeth a lie, that I knew she’d live.

Advanced esophageal cancer has a dismal five-year survival rate of less than 5 percent.

This continues to be so.

Four months after her death, I was still dialing her.

She was not and never will be dead to me.

The loss can be devastating.

The people in your family are not necessarily a reflection of your tastes, values or interests.

So when a beloved friend dies, it’s as if a piece of yourself goes missing.

It may also be the first time you confront your own mortality, as it was with me.

Going to chemo with Elizabeth was excruciating.

I wanted and needed to be there.

But she was in a big, famous hospital where every patient who walked through the door had cancer.

The day she died, I made an appointment to see a gastroenterologist, then canceled it.

People talk about grieving as if it had some predictable rhythm.

You go through whatever you feel; next, the hard edges of sorrow soften and blur.

My experience has not been so linear.

Days and weeks go by, and Elizabeth never crosses my mind.

Then I’ll see a box of Jujubes and start sobbing.

She was my movie buddy.

Elizabeth was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal.

To think she missed out on those moments just kills me.

And then there was my rage.

I’d always heard that when someone dies, one of your overwhelming emotions is anger.

I could never fathom why.

What is there to be angry about?

Death is so sad.

Then Elizabeth died, and I understood.

Of course I knew that she and her friend were reaching for the brass ring.

Still, I couldn’t be rational about this subject.

I’ll always believe that Elizabeth’s friend was an idiot!

Then I redirected my anger to Elizabeth: She was an idiot to listen!

Any other person would have been suspicious: Why is this lowly writer sucking up to me?

Her hopeful nature had not only shortened her life but had screwed up my future.

Elizabeth was divorced; I have a husband whom I love dearly, but he is 25 years older.

After the sex and the home repairs, they could leave, and we’d find new ones.

Damn it, it was a terrific plan!

And now she’d blown it by leaving me.

I’m getting pretty good at the anger part.

I’m still working on taking care of myself.

But the pain is less raw.

She’d have loved that, too.

Although Elizabeth is gone, my appreciation for her is indelible.

She always signed her e-mail “Talk soon.”

And many days, I feel we’re still talking.

I give a shot to do this for myself, now that she’s dead.

Tomorrow I must get one of my sons, age 4, a pair of glasses.

How will I make him wear them?

I can hear Elizabeth’s solution: “Judith, just get him Spider-Man glasses.

Tell him they give him special Spidey powers.

He won’t take them off, I swear.”

I smile, knowing my son will see.

And that I will always see the world through Elizabeth’s eyes.

Photo Credit: Christa Renee