Voices
to Greece for two weeks with my
girlfriend and imagined a life of
feta cheese and wine instead of
Washington politics. Over the
summer, my friend and I speedwalked, strolled and finally limped
for 18 miles overnight to help
raise money for suicide prevention
programs. And miracle of all miracles, my ex and I sold our condo,
a plan that was years in the making and executed with remarkable
grace. We walked away from that
chapter of our lives with a clink of
glasses, a small chunk of change
and a sense of closure.
Some other stuff happened,
too. I wrote stories I was proud
of. Joe Biden called my dad at a
holiday party. I lost days of my
life watching back-to-back episodes of Homeland.
But all those things were
overshadowed by the loss of my
friend Kristin, who died in January 2013 after battling bladder
cancer. She was only 42.
I never thought she’d actually
lose to stupidcancer, as she called
it, always keeping the two words
together. She was the healthiest person you’d ever meet, eating salmon and blueberries all
the time, swimming insanely
long races to Alcatraz or in be-
JENNIFER
BENDERY
HUFFINGTON
01.12.14
tween islands in Alaska. She had
so many friends, and she was so
kind, so adventurous. I always
thought if anyone could kick cancer it would be her.
When I really think about 2013,
I realize I spent most of the year
looking for her. We once had a
pact: If one of us died, you’d have
to send the other one a sign that
you were okay, that you weren’t
reeeeeally gone but just in a differ-
We once had a pact:
If one of us died, you’d have
to send the other one a sign
that you were okay, that you
weren’t reeeeeally gone but
just in a different place.”
ent place. Because we felt pretty
connected to each other, we figured our bond was strong enough
to break through this afterlife
business and transmit a message about what it was like. We
thought, How cool would that be?
So when she actually passed
away, I began searching for signs
from her everywhere. In my
dreams. In a flickering light. In the
glances of strangers who maybe,
sort of resembled Kristin. So many