Phylly came home Sunday night.

Home to dream, home to remember, home to sleep. She was my friend for thirty-five years. Along with other friends and her family, I was at the Botanic Gardens in Glencoe that night to dedicate a bench to her memory. Here, more or less, is what I said:

"Phylly loved this place. She wasn't what I would call an outdoors person. People were her passion, not plants. But she did love a beautiful natural setting, especially if there was water. She was the one I could rely on to sit on decks -- unless there were too many bees -- or to drive into the hills to have dinner on Skyline Boulevard, where you could see San Francisco Bay on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other, or to postpone a long trip back to Chicago, just to have dinner in a northwoods dining room overlooking Plum Lake.

Then there was Lake Michigan, a constant throughout our lives. We returned to the Evanston lakefront again and again. Early in our friendship, we watched the sun rise from the rocks at Elliot Park. Much later, we played in the waves with her first child. On my last birthday we spent together, before she got too sick to go out, we walked down to the lake after dinner. We didn't talk much. We were feeling the weight of the accumulated years; not only the burdens that life had placed on each of us, but also the strength of our bond.

Our friendship had taken us so many places. We wandered from one watery spot to another. We went to Canada in the early seventies. I remember a park on Salt Spring Island. We sat on a fallen log and talked, the ocean sparkling at our feet, just like that water is now. Another summer, we backpacked through Europe. We drank Martini Rouge on a deck in Leysin, Switzerland, surrounded by flower filled meadows, and the Rhone River valley below.

Then we went to Greece. We lay on a rocky beach on the shores of the Aegean. We used our nylon rain ponchos for beach blankets. They were multi purpose ponchos. Beach blankets, raincoats, even mattress covers in some of the funky hostels we stayed in. We always put the same side down against the mattress, to protect against bedbugs. We called it the bug side. "Bug side down," we used to say to each other.

That trip to Europe is bittersweet now. I have no one to share these memories with. They were mine and Phylly's. Are they mine alone now?

I don't think so. I feel her here, in this place she loved. She's everywhere. She's in the air and that tree and that little lake. I think that when I come back here after today, and sit on the bench looking out at the water, I will find her here. And I know she remembers that trip to Europe clear as a bell, just like she always did. I don't have to feel alone in my memories. None of us do. She's guarding our memories like the rocks guard the lake. She's watching over them, and keeping them safe.

We will never forget her and she will never forget us. And even when we leave here today, we don't need to worry about leaving her behind. We'll find her again, maybe when we go back to places we were together, revisit the beaches and oceans, pools and parks. Maybe even in our own back yard. She's everywhere now. And she remembers everything."

After the dedication, a cool breeze rustled the tree, heavy with red berries, by her bench. Crickets chirped. Squirrels scampered through the fallen leaves. High above us, a bird crossed the sky. I ran my hand along the brass plaque with her name on it.

For nine months, she was lost. Now I know where to find her.