My best friend Marielle died while in a diabetic coma. She had had her 61st birthday only a few months ago. 

I learned that she had died only the day before I left for Amsterdam to celebrate my twentieth wedding anniversary with my husband, Jim. Her loss coloured the entire experience. I kept remembering her face, her voice. It’s still surreal to me that she is gone.

I first met Marielle in 2002 when starting my technical writing classes at Concordia. I remember her walking into our classroom: a beautiful tall blonde, smartly dressed in a long wool coat. I then ran into her at a Society for Technical Communication event, as she was also part of the tech writing community in Montreal. We quickly became best friends. 

She became one of the people in this world who loved me most, with all of her heart. She genuinely wanted the best for me and deeply understood me as someone dealing with her own serious medical issues. She always said I was the bravest person she knew. I always said she was the bravest person I knew.

To be loved by Marielle meant to be loved completely and unconditionally. She wanted nothing more but to spend time with her friends and family. We could talk and laugh for hours on end.  

Marielle helped rescue my last birthday. It was a few months ago and I wasn’t quite sure how I would celebrate it as I had been in so much pain and under so much stress for many months. I finally decided to have a small gathering with the closest of my friends, as I knew that would cheer me up, but at the last minute, several friends needed to cancel. I spent most of the day crying and depressed, feeling that nobody cared. But Marielle was so excited to celebrate with me and messaged me throughout the day. She and my other best friend came to the party to celebrate with Jim and I and we had an incredible evening. The four of us ended up talking for seven hours!

Her last gift to me spoke of sisterhood; a beautiful glass globe with a bright green tree inside it. The leaflet that came with it spoke of the importance of sisters, even those who do not come from the same family. She said that I was her sister, and we hugged and got a little teary. That was the last time I saw her.

She was one of my favourite human beings on Earth. She loved her friends, family, (and cats!) so fully and unconditionally. And what a sense of humour she had! I will always remember her sitting at my kitchen table, laughing until tears rolled down her face. I will always hear her calling me Uzzie Doll, full of so much love. I will always remember how neither of us ever wanted to get off the phone, how an hour would pass by as if it were a minute. I could talk to Marielle forever and never run out of things to say.

My life is so much richer for having had her in it.

My heart is broken. But my memories of Marielle will live within me forever.