I feel numb. Maria, the girl I lived with in the dorm for four years - lost HER husband last night. Her text to me started with "I've joined your club." Ouch. This is not a sought-out membership. I don't even know yet what happened. Everyone is curious. When someone dies, and they're in their fifties, and haven't been sick, everyone wants to know what happened. I do too, I just have other feelings that are right up there with the curiosity. I feel the same numbness, the same feeling of the world stopping, the same lost feeling that followed me home from the hospital on that night four months ago. When death happens, those of us that always have an answer, that always figure out a way to fix things, that always try to make things work better; we are struck dumb. There is no way to make it better. There is no magic word, pill, book, way of talking, exercise, food.....nothing can change death.Maria is a smart woman. She is the kind of person I like to associate myself with; sensible, knowledgeable about tools, engines, minor repairs, fun, kind, with a strong devotion to family and friends. She's not a weak person. I like to think that the above description fits me, also. (Maybe I'm just flattering myself, too.) But this is why I hate to see her "join the club". It doesn't really fit that well on us, 'widowhood'. We were little girls that dreamed of wedding dresses, teenage girls that saw our parents stick with it, college girls with a plan to find a man. We envisioned marriage with houses, pets, children....and we both got it. When we met, I was seventeen, she was already eighteen. We were kids just thrown together by some random roommate fairy. It worked. We got along. When we graduated, she was twenty-two and headed back to Atlanta for a job, I was twenty-one and headed to the altar with Scott.Maria wore the lovely shiny lavender bridesmaid's dress in my wedding. I wore the absolutely beautiful black bridesmaid's dress at her wedding. (To this day, the prettiest wedding photos I have ever seen.) She came to visit after Mallory was born, to see our first baby girl. Not long after, she had baby girls of her own. Even when we lived in England, Maria would come see us when we visited Scott's parents. The kids were growing fast, and all of us worked and were busy with life. It didn't matter how much time passed, though; Maria is a forever friend. Whenever we did get the chance to talk, we didn't hold back. And, being a forever friend, she was there this past June when we said goodbye to Scott with a service in Florida. Maria and Tamre' - the other best college friend - drove in the night before the service and had dinner with the family. Then we went back to Tamre's room. Within minutes, it was just as if we were in the dorm room together. Only the discussions were about husbands, the loss of mine, nearly-grown children, aging parents, taking care of ourselves and the need for reading glasses. I appreciate them being there for me so much. Maria was there at the start of my journey with Scott and she was there to mourn/celebrate the end.Then, that text. Almost four months to the day of not being able to wake my husband from his nap due to a heart attack, Maria's husband falls over while mowing the grass, due to a heart attack. My Scott was fifty-two. Doug was fifty-three. Maria and I are both moms left with two girls. What a club. I told her that if she wanted me at his services, just say the word. She said let's get together later, she knows I've traveled too much lately. I can't wait to plan a weekend outside Atlanta. Let's call it a club meeting. I don't want to invite anybody else. Here's hoping that the rest of you little girls that dreamed happily-ever-after are continuing to live it. When part of it is gone, the bad part is that it's still ever-after, just not so happily.