Jill's Journal: Saying goodbye to Janice

I knew the day would come. But is one ever really prepared to say goodbye to a friend, no matter their age?

I had to do just that this week. 

Although more than 30 years separated us by age, Janice and I became fast friends when I moved into the apartment across the hall from her and her husband, Bob, who were the on-site managers. The retired couple took pride in caring for the complex, so much so that you didn’t walk on the grass. It was pristine. As was the parking lot. They literally swept the lot with a push broom, and if your car happened to have an oil leak, well, they were quick to let you know that it needed to be parked on the street.

While Bob was a jokester, Janice and I, were both blessed with the gift of gab. And we did plenty of that. She’d catch me as I walked in the door to let me know about the day’s happenings around the complex or wanted to know what the scoop around town was. Rarely did we have a “quick” chat.

I well remember the time when Janice and I were deep in conversation in the hallway one night and Bob let us know that we’d been “talking long enough.” He peeked his head out a couple of times, and after a while, he simply gave up. It seems we always had something to chat about. Family, friends, a memory, the day’s happenings, things that had occurred around the apartment complex that day or about who was moving in or out.

But Janice was more than just a good conversationalist. In my eyes, she was “Super Woman,” and I once wrote a column that referred to her in that capacity. While it was a heroic feat to me, Janice, a longtime farmwife, didn’t bat an eye as she swept up the dead mouse in my garage after alerting her about the dead rodent. I probably could have swept it up myself, but Janice wouldn’t have it.

Janice was a good cook, too. I was treated to many knocks on the door, often handed something freshly-baked and too good to refuse or a polite invitation to join her for supper with the girls. Ah, yes, the girls. That, too, was a quirky combination of friends of assorted ages. Sometime after Janice and I had become friends, Jodi, another tenant in the complex 15 years my junior, and Sally, who was somewhere in her 70s and lived just down the hall from me, became “the girls.” And Janice was our common bond, who connected us all.

We’d celebrate birthdays with a meal. Sometimes our celebrations were home-cooked, a potluck or we’d venture out to a restaurant somewhere in the area. The food was always good, but the company we were in, was even better.

Our last meal together was at Sally’s apartment in Sioux Falls after her health had forced her to move from the apartment down the hall from mine. Just like all the others, we talked and we laughed, and then we talked some more and laughed some more too.

Although more than three decades separated us in age, Janice and I had more in common than one could imagine. Around the same time Bob’s health was failing, my dad was battling a brain tumor. Bob passed away just four months ahead of my dad. I remember the day well. I had heard voices in the hallway, and it was Janice and her family, and when she saw me, she grabbed me and sobbed. I cried too.

And that’s when our friendship grew even stronger. We talked a lot. We needed to. And we laughed a lot. Because we needed to. And when my dad passed, she was there with a shoulder to cry on.

About five years later, Janice’s health dictated that she could no longer live in the apartment across the hall from me. I remember the day she left; it was a sad day, and although I knew she was just a mile or two down the road, I knew life at the apartment complex wouldn’t be the same. And it hasn’t been the same since she left.

It’s been a few years since Janice’s smiling face has peeked out of her door to catch me “just for a minute” or knocked at my door with something freshly-baked. 

I miss those sweet, simple things. 

I miss my friend Janice.