Almost two years ago I wrote in this journal that a very dear friend of mine, Julie, had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She died this week.
I'm just now able to write about it. Julie had had a mastectomy and chemo, and was doing fairly well for a while. After her chemotherapy was finished she told friends and family that if the cancer came back anywhere, she wasn't doing chemo again.
They found cancer in her bones very recently. On Tuesday she went into the hospital for some tests because she was jaundiced. They found her liver eaten up with cancer. They made her comfortable, and she didn't come home from the hospital.
I am waiting to hear news of the arrangements. As I said, I haven't been able to write about it until now, but now I feel like it, so I'm going to share a few memories of my friend Julie.
Julie's family was originally from Kentucky but she had lived several years in Illinois as well. She and her husband and two children moved back to Breckinridge County, Kentucky in 1972. She and my eldest sister, Dennice, had been friends in school, and very soon our families were spending a lot of time around each other. Her daughter, Angie, was a year ahead of me in school, and she and I became best friends.
My memories of Julie at that time are of a bubbly brunette with a huge smile. She could lose her temper quickly, and she could get it back quickly. She couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but she loved music. I remember once at our house she and two of my sisters started dancing to some oldies music on the radio, and I was delighted at how well she danced. Angie was mortified, but I had all these older sisters, and to me Julie was just another sister, so there was nothing embarrassing about it to me.
Julie was a good seamstress and could knit and crochet. Her house was always full of home made crafts. She was color blind, though, so sometimes the color schemes were a bit off, but she didn't mind, and we got used to it.
During the summer we would go swimming at Vastwood Lake near Hawesville, Kentucky. We'd take lunch and stay all day. My mother had a big old station wagon for several years, and one time we were heading to the lake with Mom, Julie, my sisters Dennice and Lois, me, Angie, Julie's son Joe, and Dennice's daughter Sheila, all in that wagon.
On the way to Vastwood Lake, in Hancock County, there was a section of the road where on most days one could smell the local paper mill. People, if you've never smelled a paper mill, you should thank your lucky stars. Well, I remember this day we were going up Indian Hill when the smell hit us, and Angie piped up from the back, "Mom! I think your potato salad spilled!" Everyone cracked up at that one. (She seriously had thought that the potato had spilled; she wasn't being funny!) And always after that whenever driving that road, when we got close to Willamette, we'd say something about Julie's potato salad spilling.
Julie and her husband divorced in the late seventies. She had suspected him of cheating, but hadn't been able to prove it, and she really wanted to have proof before she divorced him. She'd heard a rumor of who he might be seeing, so for several nights, she followed him around. Somehow she talked my sister Lois into going with her, and finally one night, while hiding in an alley off Main Street in Hardinsburg, they saw him with the woman she'd heard he was sleeping with. She took pictures. Later she found letters they'd written to each other. With this evidence she confronted him, got her divorce, and got custody of their children. I remember him as being a very disagreeable man who drank too much.
In the early 80s she remarried and had another daughter. This daughter became like a little sister to me. When Angie married and moved out, she missed her so much that I started spending more time with her. She'd come to my house on Monday evenings and I would give her guitar lessons. She was only four years old, so it was mostly just an excuse for her to play around with my guitar and spend time with me, but she did learn a few things.
When Thomas and I started dating I wasn't sure how my father was going to take it. So I asked Julie and Tim, half jokingly, if I could come live with them if Daddy kicked me out. Julie's response was "There's a room waiting for you." Of course I didn't have to take her up on that, but it was nice knowing she was there for me.
Julie and my sister Dennice hosted my bridal shower. Julie's daughter, Zella, was one of my flower girls; she was escorted by Dennice's son, my nephew Jamie. Julie made Zella's dress and the dress of the other little flower girl in our retinue. She traveled with me to Louisville to the little girl's house, to fit her for her dress. This was a daughter of friends of Thomas' whom I'd only known a short while, and Julie sat down, pulled out her sewing basket, and before I knew it she and the little girl's mother were "thick as thieves".
My sister Maxine's daughter, Evonne, was one of my bridesmaids, and they got in from Florida only the day before my wedding. They were staying at Dennice's house, and at about 4:00 that afternoon I got a call from Dennice. "Tell Mom I need her. I think whoever Maxine got to do Evonne's dress messed it up. It doesn't look right." Panicking, I drove Mom to Dennice's house. Now my mother and Dennice are expert seamstresses. I have seen my mother look at a dress in a magazine, draw and cut out a pattern, and then sew up an exact replica of it. My mother took a look at that dress and turned white. The seamstress who made Evonne's dress had made other things for Maxine, so Maxine had trusted her to be able to follow the pattern and make this dress.
My mom said, "I don't know WHAT she did, but this is all wrong!" I don't remember much of the details, but I do remember that the picot edging was put on wrong, and there was something wrong about the lace peplum. Anyway Mom and Dennice looked at each other and Dennice asked, "Can we do it?"
Mom studied the dress for several seconds and then said, "With Julie helping, we might get it done tonight." So they sent me to get Julie and to pick up whatever leftover lace she might have from the flower girls' dresses.
I knocked on Julies' front door. She answered it. I said, "Evonne's dress is all screwed up. Mom and Dennice need your help. They need any left over lace you might have -- oh, and white thread!"
She said, "Just let me get my scissors and my thimble!"
"Oh, and bring a seam ripper!" I called after her.
I dropped her off at Dennice's, then went home to get the lace that Mom had and to get Mom's dressmaking scissors. I also got all my nighttime toiletries that I would need because I'd decided that I wasn't going to wait at home wondering what was going on.
When I got back to Dennice's there sat the three of them. They had put two seam rippers to good use, and as I watched they came up with a plan. Mom laid everything out, then gave Dennice and Julie their instructions. At one point all three of them were sewing on different parts of the dress. Mom would press each part as it was finished, and several times poor tired Evonne had to stand on the kitchen table so they could fit the dress to her.
While this was going on I took my shower, gave myself a facial, washed my hair, and did my nails. I tried to sleep some, honestly, but I couldn't. At some point Lois fixed everyone some sandwiches and Dennice pulled out a bottle of wine. I distinctly remember Julie looking at me, grinning, and saying, "I told you we needed to have one more hen party before you became a married lady."
At 3 a.m. I was finally home and in my own bed and Evonne's dress was finished. We had had a blast, and although everyone was tired the next day, I wouldn't have traded that night for anything, and Julie was a big part of it. She was a big part of my life for most of my childhood and young adulthood; as I say, she was like an extra sister.
You know I've thought several times about writing that story of Evonne's dress, but something always held me back. I'd start to, and then I'd feel "not yet."
I know there are more things I could write about her if I took the time, but I guess this is enough for now. I am sad to have lost this "sister". And I'm glad to have had her in my family.
Rest in Peace, Julie Meador.
