My friend, Natalia.

I´m here drinking vodka, Zubrowka, polish vodka, from a little bottle. It tastes good. And I´m drinking. I drink it today, because I´m carring out a kind of deal. A knock up deal, because I couldn´t achieve it like we agreed on, but in the end it was a deal, the one that I made with the only girl that I have ever given panties.

Natalia Kochan Rodriguez, the only girl I´ve ever given a panties, one day told me by email the bad time that she was having because she didn´t have any underwear to put on. Something about a friend, who´s sister was visiting her from London, and that they have been partying all the night for a farewell, and of course, the day after a hangover and all that shit, her friend has forgotten to bring her a couple of panties. So Natalia locked herself in the bathroom and start crying. She cried because, and quote “such a shit that I don´t have any fucking panties to put over my ass”. After all the problem with the panties got fixed, the father caught a train during a big storm and he brought it to her, the panties and some Mcnuggets. Mcnuggets was her cup of tea, mainly if she was dipping them in teriyaki sauce, that she used to swipe from the kitchen when she worked at Itsu, the restaurant where we met working together. Then Natalia kept going with her story, and now with panties she got another good cry with Dirty Dancing final scene, full of Mcnuggets and laughing about herself.

A little time after that email, Natalia asked me for a favour: she wanted some souvenirs from London to give to some people and I didn´t mind to go around during my break and purchase some for her. Notting Hill is full of souvenir shops. With some magnets, pins, bottleopened, socks and keyrings I was able to fill up a little package. And in the second shop that I entered, the one just close to the pizza shop and the Starbucks, I saw them, they were hanging up, it was a signal and without any hesitation I reached them, smiled and bought them.

A London tube map panties.

So, here they went, the panties, the souvenirs, inside the little package I managed for her.

After we both laughed about it. What do you want me to say? Just think about it, imagine my friend, bold, with the London tube map panties and reading polish politics magazines or watching Dirty Dancing jumping over the bed and a smile is appearing on my face.

How we are, people, sometimes, that girl, fighting against a leukemia, in the hospital, with two hundred troubles over her head and the only worries that she had was having enough clean panties.

My friend was a brave girl, she has her temper and sometimes she had hard times getting to know people, I mean, she could be such a asshole when she wanted it. She was sensible, sharp, clever and overall she was cheerful. Always with that smile on.

Natalia went to Poland one day to hear that her mother was really sick and when she went back to get a idea to how to deal with the circumstances she discovered that she had leukemia. And with leukemia she has spend the last year and a half, and in that time her mother died as her dog died too.

And she, my friend, always kept her smile. Always there with her. It´s amazing how some special people know how to deal with life. One misfortune after other and she fought back with her desire to live.

I have to drink another shot of Zubrowka, cheers for her, because we said when Carlitos brought me the bottle from her (Carlitos Rodriguez Kocham, her boyfriend, my hero) that we would drink it together when she came back in her lovely London, healthy and with the will to party again.

It couldn´t happen, Natalia passed away this morning, abouth 6:oo am.

As usual in these cases, we have a lot of missing conversations, a lot of experiences that we are not gonna live, a lot of dreams that will not become true and I will always hold a grudge to have not taken a plane to Katowice to give her a huge hug, what am I gonna tell you? But the only thing I know, the only thing I´m sure of is that my friend, Natalia, others things maybe not, but to die, she did with the panties on!!!

A kiss my girl, wherever you are.