I have been friends with Karin for more than thirty years. She lives in the corner house at the end of my block with a lovely English garden and a large spruce tree. We bonded over dogs.

Her Labrador dog would run to the fence when I would walk by and I’d stop to pet it. I think it was about a month or two of just the dog and I that Karin and I actually had our first real conversation. It came about when she suggested we take her dog and my new rescue pup to the local park. That walk was the first time we learned more about each other than our names.

We took turns, that day throwing sticks for the dogs and on one throw my pup jumped up as Karin. swung her arm to throw the stick. An awful squeal told us something bad had happened and sure enough my puppy was whimpering on the ground. We carried her home and an hour later we were at the local Veterinarian Clinic learning she had a broken leg and would need a cast.

Karin was very upset and insisted on paying the expensive bill but I suggested we split it. That accident formed a bond of sorts between us and over the ensuing years, whenever I would see her in her garden, I would stop in for a chat.

I learned bits and pieces about her family, her heritage, her love of animals and the opera singer Renée Fleming. Karin, it turned out, was an accomplished cellist and played with the local symphony and supplemented her income as a music teacher in the off season.

We would exchange author’s names and sometimes recipes and occasionally we would allow each other a brief glimpse into our more private selves. We were friends but not close. I knew she had other friends but I only met one of them.

About three years ago, on one of my doggie walks past her house, I stopped in and she told me she had been diagnosed with uterine cancer and was going to start radiation and chemotherapy. She knew I had recovered from lung cancer so was hoping her prognosis would be the same. So did I. Sadly, it would not be that easy. Her cancer had progressed much further than mine.

Over these past two years she has gone through every possible treatment to reduce the tumour, with periods of brief respite, but the toll on her body has been horrendous. Then, last summer, she said the tumour had advanced to such a stage that she had decided to look into Medically Assisted Dying. Two weeks ago she told me she had chosen a date.

I, like many of her friends, have been dropping in over the past two years to bring food, help with house cleaning, the garden or whatever she needed, which was not much. She has told me in detail about her physical health but nothing about her emotional or spiritual self and questions that have ventured into that area have been gently deflected. So when I went to see her yesterday I wasn’t sure what I would say or even how to say it. We both knew, without verbalizing it, that it would be the last time we saw each other.

She started off by telling that everything was set. She had met with the doctor in charge and would die at home in three day’s time,, with her family and a few close friends by her side. So that is that, she said and then paused briefly before saying, her voice breaking, that she wanted to thank me for being her friend.

This was what I had wanted to tell her but wasn’t sure how to say it without breaking down myself. Karin has always been the stoic one and I was determined to try and be the same. But she couldn’t do it this time and neither could I.

I got up from my chair to hug her and we both met in the middle of the room and just held each other and cried. We thanked each other for being a good friend. She told me she loved me. I told her I loved her. I kissed her cheek, she kissed my neck. It was terribly sad and seemingly unreal and beautiful all at the same time. There was nothing more to say after that. She was standing at the door when I left her. I cried all the way home.