My friend Rucy would have been 75 years old this month. Three years ago on the 17th of May we met at Java Bean on 24th Northwest. Rucy was a writing partner, a landscape gardener, an artist, a grandmother, a friend and a 27-year breast cancer survivor. Each year on the anniversary of being declared cancer free she brought chocolate truffles to share with our larger writing group.

Rucy lived on Mercer Island but would come to Ballard for Pilates and shop afterwards at our Bartell's. She was planning to go bra shopping at Mary Katherine's, the long-time lingerie store; they had an excellent selection of lingerie for woman after mastectomies. But before she could acquire new lingerie, she acquired a new diagnosis. The persistent cough was lung cancer, dating back many undetected years.

The "No Parking Between 3-8 p.m." signs for the Syttende Mai Parade were already in place along 24th when we took the window table at Java Bean. Rucy had brought her own cushion to tie to the seat of a chair. She had always been very small but her illness was rendering her smaller, and it hurt to sit on her bones. She had accepted my offer to accompany her on a certain Ballard errand. Rucy could be fearless in her words, deeds, and mortality, but she didn't particularly want to go to the Gob Shoppe alone to buy a bong.

When I was fifteen years old my first boyfriend broke up with me because I didn't know what a bong was; 30 years later I was barely any better educated. I did know that The Gob Shoppe had been an institution on Sunset Hill; a "head" shop perched at the convergence of 32nd, 85th and Golden Gardens Drive. But when it moved to Market Street and changed hands it seemed to become just another nails/tattoo storefront on a rapidly changing block; still it was the one that Rucy's son had recommended.

Rucy drove us a few blocks closer to Market Street and parked slowly. She was in sweat pants and sneakers, short sleeves and her baseball hat, walking carefully. I felt robust next to her in sandals and shorts. Her skin was incredibly soft as she let me hold one arm. She was having trouble with nausea; had no desire at all to eat or take pain recommendation. She had tried her medical marijuana in the form of brownies but said they tasted terrible, and she felt too "loopy" afterwards.

It still said Gob Shoppe on the outside but the business was confined to a loft at the back of a tattoo parlor. The stairs looked very steep to Rucy but she made her way up and for over 20 minutes we moved back and forth between glass cases, stepping around a dormant yellow dog. Rucy wanted a bong that would be as soothing a possible, a water bong. Her throat was always irritated; was there a way that trying to smoke could be soothing? The owner gushed over hand blown pipes and shared his tips on freezing water in the bowl, for the coldest experience possible.

When Rucy had made a choice the Gob Shoppe owner announced that he couldn't take credit cards so we went through our backpacks to find every last dollar, uncovering money and safety pins from nooks and crannies like desperate magicians.

"You could go to the ATM just down the block," the owner suggested. Rucy glared at the owner in his blond dreadlocks and apparent good health, "I couldn't survive those stairs again."

"I could meet you down there," he said more quietly. But we counted dollars out one by one until between us we had enough. "Give it a special wrap," the owner called out to another worker, "and throw in cleaner for free."

We moved to the stairs. Rucy took as deep a breath as she was able before starting down. "Have fun ladies!" the owner called to us, as though our errand were recreational. We walked slowly back to her car and she asked me to repeat some of his directions for use and care.

The bong didn't work out well for Rucy. She said that she couldn't get the hang of it and the effects didn't make her more inclined to eat. A neighbor tried another brownie recipe but she said that they still tasted awful. Yet when I visited her she would be the one feeding me lunch even after she had stopped eating. She died just before the winter solstice.

But three years ago, on that 17th of May, the warm sun through the window was still pleasant for Rucy. Over tea she had eaten part of a square of coffeecake, putting small bits slowly into her mouth. We spoke of her garden and what was in bloom. She had been giving away her plants; trying to place them in good homes. Already in my yard there were lace-cap hydrangeas, a Japanese maple, dahlia bulbs.

I gave Rucy's arm a last squeeze and watched her slowly maneuver into traffic. Then I went north along what would be the parade route later in the day. Rucy had left her cushion behind at the Java Bean. I went to the empty table in the window and untied the blue cushion carefully from the high-backed wood chair - and walked home alone to my garden of Rucy's plants.

Peggy's e-mail is atlargeinballard@yahoo.com She writes additional pieces for the P-I's Webtown at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsoujrce.com/ballard/.