Sitting at my closet desk for the first time in a while, my eye is drawn to a small pale blue post-it note fastened by magnet to a metal strip on the wall behind the computer screen. It is a note from Terry, from years ago - long enough ago that the post-it has lost its stickum. The note was sent with a book by Mary Karr. It took three tries and at least five years before the book could be checked off the to-read list. Terry seemed to think the book had some relevance to our childhood, and somehow I could not, can not, see the relevance. It is astounding how two people can live through the same time, in the same place, and come away with such different views on the experience. I no longer think my memories are the correct version. Nor, however, do I subscribe to Terry's version of events. There is much to be said for simply allowing that my memories were smoothed and mellowed by distance and Terry's maybe sharpened, enhanced (like Google photos, perhaps overly saturated) by continued proximity to whatever had caused her pain. What we did learn, though, was that each of us had skills needed by the other, and there are days now that I want to call her up and fret, complain, vent to a kindly ear. She was so good at making and keeping friends. It is a skill that still evades me. And so I find myself again caregiving and caught between my needs and the needs of the person who faces daily pain, the spectre of death hanging over.