about anna : a bittersweet eulogy

Note: I wrote this just after my friend Anna passed 2 years ago. I guess it took me a little while to be ready to share it.

I imagine her in the light of Heaven with a flower in her hair. A glass of wine in her hand, resting with her feet up, feeling the full freedom and ease of having left behind the pain and struggles of life. I see her laughing hard and jumping up when a song she loves comes on to dance with Jesus and excitedly ask him yet another question she always wondered about. Who knows what she is wearing, but that it is purple and it is probably tie dye too. I’m thinking either strappy sundress or flowy, full length hippie-tastic kaftan.

She’s been gone now for about 3 weeks and I have been putting off writing this because I knew that if I did, then I would need to face reality and reality can be painful.

The day I found out that she died I headed to the gym to work out my emotions. I felt such a peace and yet I felt a heaviness too. She and her husband, Brian, had tried for many years to have a baby and then a drug she was prescribed for her cancer three years ago brought about a now three year old baby boy, Ryker. It was a miracle and it is probably the most heartbreaking aspect of her passing.

So, I was on the treadmill feeling the confusion that death brings about for the living when I looked up at one of the gym’s tv screens. Right at that moment a camera zoomed into a police officer’s name tag that said “THRASHER”. That is Anna’s last name. I don’t know what it meant. I’m not one to infer definite meaning when I am uncertain. But it made me smile and I had to think - isn’t that just like Anna. If she saw a friend feeling low, she had that joke or that insightful word of encouragement. Friends like Anna are very rare.

There are 2 especially holy moments I think of when Anna Thrasher comes to mind. Both bound us together and are etched in my brain.

The first is a trip she and I took with some good friends to Santa Barbara. I knew Anna from when I lived in Southern California for 3 years. We got to know each other through several groups we were involved in through church. One focused on marriage and the other actually with our husbands in a couples small group setting.

Back to the daytrip to the coast - we had a super fun day of shopping at eating and were driving the few hours back home when it somehow came up - What would we do if someday our husbands left us? It was all hypothetical and none of us gave the discussion much thought because it didn’t seem at all likely.

Within the next year, something like that happened to both Anna and I. We were stunned, we were heartbroken and damn it - we were so there for each other! We walked through that season together and cheered each other on. We prayed, we cried together and we sent each other songs to lift each other’s spirits. It was ugly and beautiful all at the same time.

Flash forward a few years, there is the second holy moment. I use those words because there are horrific times you walk through in life that God is so tangible and so present that you know He is propping you up or carrying you through - depending on the day.

Anna and her husband reconciled and it was hard for all those who had seen the hell she walked through to forgive him. My husband and I had gotten a divorce and it was just over 2 years later - the day of my wedding to my now husband of almost 10 years.

Just after the ceremony, I saw Anna and Brian walking in my direction and as woo woo as it may sound to some, I was overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit in that moment telling me to give Brian a HUGE hug and tell him how happy I was to see him and how happy I was to see them having worked everything out. Like a hug for a prodigal returning home. I didn’t think much of that moment again until Anna sent me a message a few weeks later. It said that she could not overestimate how much it meant to them that I made Brian feel so welcomed and that I was willing to get past what was and to be happy for them in what is.

Anna really is the personification of a “ride or die” friend. If I wrote a new post, she was the one who would share it and tell me what she thought of it when it felt like no one else was taking the time to do so. Despite the way the cancer ravaged her body, her spirit and her deep, non-cookie cutter faith was flowing in force.

One last story to wrap this up.

During the time she was separated from her husband, my kids (then age 6 and 9) came to stay at her house for a few days on a visit to So Cal, having moved to Reno the prior year. The kids were super excited when they met her ferrets “Mischief” and “Mayhem”. The kids ran around the house checking it all out and Austin came back from having been in Anna’s Master Bedroom. He said,”Mom, Mom! Guess what?! Anna has a hot pink exercise pole in her bedroom!!”

Anna and I died laughing. We both agreed that some day when he was older, he might put 2 and 2 together on the “exercise pole”.

I am looking forward to seeing Anna again someday. I hope in the meantime maybe she will give my 2 babies in heaven a hug. In earth years, they would be 21 and 18. For the rest of my time on earth, thinking of Anna and her friendship will always feel bittersweet.

She always said the band Big Daddy Weave’s music (such as the songs “Redeemed” and “My Story”) were full of meaning for her. Now, every time I hear their latest single, I think of her - peaceful, whole, in her new state of being and I smile.