Riana

Riana and I grew up together. When I say 'grew up together,' I don't mean that we went to high school together or that we were friends for a few years. I mean that ever since my earliest memories, we have been friends, and most of my childhood memories include her. Over Christmas my family watched home videos, and if we had been giving Academy Awards, she would have gotten one for best supporting actress. She was in more of the videos than anyone else outside our family.

So what did we do all those years growing up? When we were both about three, we had picnics in my backyard on overturned laundry baskets as tables. We went to preschool together, learning how to blow bubbles, act out the Nativity play, clean up before the Gunny Bag came to eat your toys, and other essential preschool skills.

I don't think we went to Kindergarten together, because she was in morning, and I in afternoon. But besides that, we were always in church and school together. In fourth grade, I remember her confiding in me that she had given Neil Peterson two Valentines, because she was madly in love with him. When we would eat lunch outside, we would try our hardest to gross everyone out. If we had cup-o-noodles, we would toss them onto the cement to let them cool. And yes, then we would eat them. I would refuse to eat applesauce with a spoon, preferring instead to suck it out through a small hole in the foil lid. I would also suck my chocolate milk through a small hole in the carton. Riana surpassed me on this, though, and would mix her applesauce and chocolate milk together to eat it. This even grossed me out. :)

One time at recess, we were sitting outside giving the grass a haircut (with scissors) and eating fruit snacks. I had dumped them onto the grass and was eating them. This grossed out someone, and I remember explaining, "Well, I'll eat it off the ground, but it's not like I'd eat it if someone else sucked on it or something." So Riana pipes up that she would. I offered her the one currently in my mouth. She ate it. We all gave an appropriate reaction, which is why she did it in the first place, I'm sure.

Around that time (actually, it was a few years later... but who's telling? okay. 6th grade) at recess, we would play down in the bushes at the very edge of the playground. Whenever anyone (Riana) had to pee, she would just step outside of school property into the arroyo and squat behind a tree. This led to me following her example. Except I was not so knowledgeable in the art of peeing in bushes, so I peed all over the back of my pants. Riana suggested I tie my coat around my waist and presume no one would notice. I hope I was right.

When my parents would go out of town, I would usually stay at Riana's house. She had a bunch of cats, and I loved it when one would fall asleep on my lap when we watched TV or something. Everything I know about cats, I learned at Riana's house.

One time we were laughing so hard that I got hiccups, and they wouldn't go away. Riana and Rigel got me a glass of water and had me drink upside down from the other side or something. Well, needless to say, my hiccups did not go away, and we just all started laughing even harder.

During the summers, Riana's family would invite our family to go waterskiing with them at Abiquiu Reservoir. We would ski. Riana was a better skier than me, and at church every Sunday she would always tell me how many miles she had skied the previous day. When it wasn't our turn in the boat, Riana and I would play on the rocks and mud on the shore. Or we'd eat snacks up in their camper. One time we were playing in the camper, and she tried to tell me about her absolute favorite song in the whole world. I had never heard it, since I didn't listen much to the radio. We didn't have keys to the truck, and even if we had, we wouldn't have gotten reception out there. So she sang it to me. Now whenever I see Billy Ray (or even Miley) Cyrus on TV, I'm always reminded of Riana singing "Achy Breaky Heart" to me in the back of her camper.

Our parents were in the church choir together, which meant while they were in the chapel singing, we would run around the church playing. Our favorite thing to do was rearrange these room divider thingies into forts in the cultural hall. The point of these forts was to keep the boys (Erik, Howard, and Rigel) out. We made a fort that was completely enclosed, and to make it even safer, we overturned tables and chairs as spikes to keep the boys away. When we were lucky, there was chalk on the top of these dividers, and we'd play hang-man or draw pictures. When we weren't lucky, we'd just climb and sit on top of the dividers. One of the times we were climbing around on the dividers, it wobbled, and Riana fell off. Unfortunately, she fell right onto a table leg. I'm pretty sure after that we weren't allowed to play on the room dividers. But I'm also pretty sure we did anyway.

Riana would always get sunburned. That's what happens when you have fair skin and freckles. I remember one time, after another friend's birthday party at The Beach, she got so sunburned she had blisters on her shoulders. That's why my parents would never let me go to the beach without them there to reapply sunscreen for me.

I was kind of confused when I heard she had skin cancer. I assumed it would be on her shoulders or back, or maybe her nose. Those are the places she got really sunburned. But she got skin cancer on her leg.

I cried a lot when I first heard about it. I was living in China, and I felt like there was nothing I could do. I prayed a lot. I cried a lot. My mom sent me updates whenever she heard any news. Eventually Riana got better, and the cancer went away.

Then late last year, I heard that she had gotten cancer again. This time I was living in Utah, just an hour away from Salt Lake, where Riana was living. I couldn't do anything about the cancer, but I could be a friend.

When I went to visit her, she told me about the cancer. It was just a small lump in the same place in her leg, and it was probably just a bit they missed last time--maybe not something new. She had a choice of whether to do chemo treatments or not, and she decided to go ahead with them. I thought it was a responsible choice, since chemo now would lower the possibility of having to repeat the process.

I visited her a couple times in the hospital. We talked and laughed, and it seemed like she was doing great. She said it wasn't as bad this time as the last time. She still had all her hair, which she explained to me was because they were using the strongest kind of chemo that doesn't make your hair fall out. I thought that meant it was pretty safe.

Riana's mom called me this afternoon to let me know she had died. It wasn't the cancer directly, but the treatments. When I went to see her, she told me she was feeling all right. She said it was only a few days (relatively) where she felt terrible, and I'm glad I got to hang out with her when she was feeling pretty well.

I'm happy I got to visit her before she passed away. I hope she gets to have cats in heaven. And I hope no one else in the world ever remembers the butch hair cut I had my freshman year in high school.