A Best Friend

This is my Mom.

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My mother's best friend is named Dottie. They have known one another for 76 years, since my mother, who is now 93, was 17. Dottie lives in the town where my mother and father lived for 63 years, When my mother moved two years ago to the rest home near me, Dottie was two hours away.
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The last time they saw eachother was at my Mother's kitchen table, at her last visit to her former home, when Dottie and her daughter and Mom and JB and I sat around eating coffee cake and drinking tea and soda and laughing about all kinds of memories.
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Dottie's daughter called me yesterday to say Dottie had had surgery that didn't go well and she was going into hospice. I called back this morning, wondering how my mother could see her friend. I started crying when I heard Dottie's eyes have been closed for two days now and her body is preparing its leave. I cried because this was a woman, barely five feet tall, whose smile and good humor lit up a room. She was a great friend to my mother: practical, reliable, cheerful, helpful.
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Anyway, Dottie's daughter told me that Dottie has only spoken twice in the last few days. Here are the circumstances of when and why:
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1. Dottie's daughter is telling the physical therapist that Dottie is 90 years old. Dottie mutters: "It's just a number..."
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2. Her family is trying to help her out of bed into a wheelchair. Her daughter says. "Be careful not to wrinkle her clothes." Dottie pipes in, "What's wrong with wrinkles?"
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Her children are going to remember these moments. And when I am old and ready to die, dear God, let me remember Dottie, and my own mother, and let me hold on to, and tuck under my angel wings, my precious sense of humor.