It was this time of year, 22 years ago, that Stacey and I became friends.

I wasn't new in town; but I'd decided that my hair needed some professional attention, instead of my own hacksaw efforts. She was only 20, just out of cosmetology school. I had a passing acquaintance with her boss.

What I remember of first meeting her is that my one-year-old son, now 200 pounds and nearly six feet tall, was a tiny toddler, who politely touched the stars on the salon's tree with one finger -- a phenomenon that charmed Stacey no end. She said he was the most beautiful kid she'd ever seen.

For a mom with her firstborn -- well, she had me from hello.

I didn't have many friends then and I don't have many now. But something about Stacey was just so effervescent, comic and dear -- she had the same luck with men that I did (slim to none) and the same absurd sense of the universe -- that I began getting my hair cut more often.

And then, we started packing a hamper with wine and cheese and going to sit on the grass and listen to the symphony. We went out to dinner. We went dancing at a cowboy bar. I met her family and she met mine.

When my husband died, not long after he turned forty, of colon cancer, she came to my house and brought wine, comfort and good scissors. When I adopted my little girl, a year after his death, she was one of only two friends who encouraged me rather than suggesting I take some really good meds. I asked Stacey to be one of Francie's godmothers; and she remained the one who took that sacred responsibility most seriously.

She dressed up for the premiere of a movie made from one of my books. I wore silk to her wedding, when the boy who'd loved her since she was 16 finally convinced her that she loved him as much. Francie, then three, was a flower girl. I was remarried by then, for just a year. My husband said of Stacey, "You may not be the best friend she has. But she's the best friend you have."

One spring when Stacey was 32, she grew alarmingly thinner and pale. She was always tiny; but this was extreme. As if someone kept whispering it in her ear, she knew that she had colon cancer. But she could not convince a doctor to do a colonoscopy. When she was successful, after a year of all of us trying to talk anyone into it, the tumor was at Stage Two. But she beat the odds.

Nine years later, she is cancer-free.

She battled infertility and then diabetes. Last year, she adopted Gabriela, and asked me to stand godmother to her. When I told Stacey that Gabriela was the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen, I meant it.

Two weeks ago, an infection landed her in the hospital. Rail-thin but beautiful, she had no reserves to fight it. She had pneumonia. It got worse. Stacey was put on a ventilator. Two nights ago, her heart stopped twice. The second time, it took 45 minutes to start it. That's too long sometimes. But not always.

There's no bargaining with fate.

I know because those are dice I've rolled before.

I do things I know are silly.

I light candles to the Virgin of Guadelupe. I wish that a friend's blessed medeal from Lourdes that he tried to send me had actually arrvied. I think of her smile a dozen times a day.

One of my favorite seasonal songs has always been 'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,' because it contains that lines, "Come next year, we all will be together/if the fates allow..."

But so much happens in a year's time that we never know if the fates will allow us to be together; and it's an old adjuration to live each day as if it was our last. Of course, we don't. Stacey and I were to have our holiday visit, with our daughters, the day she went into the Emergency Department. I'd cancelled our last date -- kids, craziness, stuff that really doesn't matter. I thought we'd put it off for a few days. Now, I don't know how long it will be until I can touch her hand again.

I'll be there the day she comes out and every day for as long as I live. I want to say that I know she will survive. But I only beg for that.

If you knew her, you would, too. Still, I wish you would anyway.

Jackie M.