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My friend is dying. Polly Holly Rooney has cancer and I've been watching her slip slowly away for months.

At first she had complained about just being tired. She was caught somewhere between never really feeling sick and never really feeling well. She tried changing her diet and taking vitamins but it didn't help and finally she went to the doctor for tests. She had cancer, it was running through her body like a wildfire.

We both cried and then we prayed and then we decided to fight back. We both read everything we could find about cancer and for awhile, the future looked promising. After all, how could a small thing like cancer beat someone like Polly?

"You're looking better today, there is more color in your cheeks and you seem stronger," I said, "At this rate you'll be out of here before Christmas. There's a new store in the mall and it has the most beautiful things. We'll go there as soon as you feel up to it."

"Okay," Holly smiles, "What else will we do?"

"Well, we'll sit for days and eat ice cream and get as fat as cows," I said and I saw the pain in her eyes. "What's wrong, Holly? Are you hurting? Should I get a nurse?"

"No, I'm fine," tears made her eyes shiny.

"Tell me what's going on, Holly," I pleaded but she ignored me. I remembered a game I used to play when I was a kid and said, "A penny for your thoughts and you have to tell me the truth."

I took a penny out of my purse and placed it in her hand. Her thin fingers wrapped around it and she gave a small laugh.

"Oh, Cry, I haven't heard anyone say that for years--a penny for your thoughts. It sounds so good. I wish we could go back to being children again, life was so simple then. I wish life was like that now," she sighed.

"I do too, believe me, I wish we could turn back the clock but when we were kids all we wanted to do was grow up. Now we are all grown up and it isn't what we expected it to be," I agreed, "But you're stalling, I paid you a genuine copper penny for your thoughts and you haven't told me the truth."

"As soon as you get out of the hospital."

A nurse came in and gave Holly a pill, took her temperature and checked her pulse.

I stepped into the hallway to give them some privacy. While I was waiting, I saw Doctor Martinez and hurried down the hall to catch him.

"Hi," I fell into step beside him, "I think Holly looks a little better today, don't you? Will she be able to go home in time for Christmas?"

He stopped and looked deep into my eyes.

"I think we'd better have a talk," he led me to a small office and we sat down.

"There is no easy way to say this, but Holly isn't doing well at all. She's getting weaker every day. I'm sorry, your friend is not going to last much longer," he said as gently as he could.

"But she has color in her cheeks, she looks better and she's not in as much pain as she was?" I argued.

"She has color in her cheeks because she is flushed with a fever, we've increased her medication so she doesn't feel the pain. She's fairly comfortable right now but we haven't stopped the cancer, it's raging in her body?" he said.

"What can we do? Maybe some new medicine, chemotherapy?" I pleaded, "There must be something else we can do!"

"We've done everything we can. She's lasted longer than most and all we can do is keep her from suffering," he shook his head, "I'm so sorry."

"How much time does she have?" I asked.

"It's hard to put cancer on a time table, sometimes you expect a person to live a year and they die a week later" he said. "But Holly, I'd guess she has a few weeks."

"Weeks!" I choked, "Weeks? I want her to live years, not weeks!"

"Well, she has a lot to live for, she has friends who love her, she has her son, all these things help her hold onto life," he said.

The next day I went to the hospital early and a nurse was still in the room with Holly.

I looked at her thin arms and wondered if she even weighed a hundred pounds.

After the nurse left, Hohy asked me to paint her fingernails thinking it might lift her spirits.

"How do you like the color?" I asked, "It's called Hawaiian sunset."

"I wish I could have seen a Hawaiian sunset," she said sadly.

"Maybe you'll go to Hawaii someday," I said and kept painting her nails.

She reached for something on the nightstand.

"A penny for your thoughts and you have to tell the truth," she said and handed me the penny I'd given her the day before.

I looked at the tarnished copper coin and slipped it into my coat pocket.

"What's the question?" I asked.

"Am I going to die?" she asked calmly.

"Everybody dies," I said.

She blinked back tears, "Please tell me the truth."

I couldn't lie to her anymore, I loved her too much. I took her small hand in mine.

"I'm sorry, I don't think you have much time left." I was surprised my voice sounded normal.

"Thank you for telling me the truth," she said, "I think I already knew I was getting weaker every day but no one would be honest."

"It's time we started being honest. I think you need to call your son and tell him the truth and ask him to come and say goodbye."

"I haven't told him how sick I am. I want to see him. I love him," she choked on the words. "Oh, Cry, I don't want to die!"

We held each other and cried until there weren't any tears left.

At last she lay back on her pillow, tired but somehow stronger.

"I have so much to do. Will you help me?" she asked.

"I'd do anything in the world for you," I promised.

"Then get a pen and paper and let's start a list. I want to write a letter to everyone I love."

A tear slipped out of my eye and fell on the paper, making the ink run.

"I want to talk to Joe and tell him how much he meant to me and how happy he made me."

We both started crying again but there was also a healing in it.

Over the next few days we ended up writing over thirty letters. I promised I would mail them after she was gone.

Of course, the worst part was finally facing the truth with her son. It nearly broke Joe's heart to hear his mother talking about dying.

Joe flew home from New Jersey and they moved to a deeper level in their relationship.

I remembered how Holly had wished she could have gone to Hawaii and I arranged for a fantasy trip to the islands. I hung posters of palm trees and beaches in her room and got some tapes of Hawaiian music. I insisted everyone wear straw hats and sunglasses and flower leis. I wore a grass skirt and tried to do the hula. We all laughed until our sides ached.

"Thank you for my trip to Hawaii," she said after everyone else had left, "You've given me everything I could have ever wanted. None of this would have been possible if you hadn't been honest with me. I'm so glad I got to say goodbye to everyone and tell them how much I loved them. I'm happy knowing Joe understands that I loved him with all my heart. Thanks for respecting me and loving me enough to tell me the truth."

"It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life," I admitted. "But I hope when my time comes someone will love me enough to tell me the truth so I can tie up loose ends and make things easier for those I love."

Holly died a week after we'd had the Hawaiian party. I felt my heart had been ripped in half, she'd been my closest friend for six years.

I reached into my coat pocket for a handkerchief to wipe my tears when my fingers wrapped around a coin.

I pulled it out and recognized the penny Holly had given me. I could almost hear her saying, "A penny for your thoughts and you have to tell the truth." I smiled. She wasn't gone, not really. Someday we'd be together again, I knew it, because it wasn't a coincidence that I found the penny, it was a message from Holly and that's the truth.

Crying Wind is the bestselling author of Crying Wind, My Searching Heart.

This article was adapted from her recently published memoir When the Stars Danced. All three titles are available from Indian Life Books.