Another one bites the dust

I was emptying the dishwasher and when I went to put this bowl away, it snapped as it hit the bowl below.  I've had it for a very long time, so I shouldn't be surprised, but it's a sad loss.

The bowl was one of a set of four given to me by my dearest friend Esther, who died in 2004 after a friendship of twenty years.  We had met when I was her supervisor during her psychology internship year at the therapeutic school where I worked.  Somehow we just clicked.  We went on being friends after her internship and were there for each other until I moved to Seattle; after that, we spoke on the phone once a week.  I was her go-to person when she worried about her sons and her grandsons, and I learned how difficult it is to address psychological concerns within the Orthodox Jewish community.  She would often invite me to come to her home on holidays, but only on the condition that I stayed overnight - I had no objections to traveling on a Jewish holiday, but she couldn't allow me, as another Jew, to do it.  She came to visit me once here in Seattle in those many years apart and we had to manage a way for her to keep Kosher in my non-Kosher home, in a city with a small Orthodox community.  

Over the years we exchanged gifts on special occasions, and hers to me were always lovely and individual.  I have so many things that were gifts from her, and each one reminds me of her friendship.  In 2004 she was diagnosed with a damaged mitral valve for which she would require open-heart surgery.  She was frightened about it, but felt there was no choice.  She survived the surgery, but developed a massive infection.  I flew out to Chicago to see her one last time, and she told me, "I have no future."  A few days after I returned home, she passed away.  I still miss her every day.