Wednesday afternoon our friend passed away after a year-long battle with cancer.
Three weeks ago, she began hospice care and so we’ve known this was coming. But who wants to believe this, even when this comes to each of us?
(Because she is 39. Because she was only 39. Because she was our loved one and friend.)
The first time I met this friend, she was in town to run the Chicago Triathlon. Of course, I liked her before I knew her. Anytime you meet someone who takes up your own crazy hobbies, you’re set.
We knew each other best through our blogs and on Facebook, though we met each other because our husbands have been friends since they were kids. They lived 672.6 miles away. Their wedding doubled as our “babymoon” in 2010.
(They were still newlyweds for God’s sake.)
I am a person of faith, and I suppose I attribute that as to why I don’t ask about the unfairness of death. I suppose it’s also because we all experience loss differently. I suppose losing my mom at such a young age (both of us, she 40, me 13) colors that. I suppose I am also not brave enough to go to the places where we ask such questions because I’ll just end up feeling things I don’t want to feel.
(In the subsequent two nights since she passed, her husband, our friend, late at night, has left an emoticon for a kiss on her Facebook wall. The injustice that that is how he bids his wife goodnight now is more than my heart can take.)
Our friend was generous and kind. She was funny. She remained positive throughout her entire battle, but was always honest and candid about the realities that battling an aggressive form of cancer provided her.
(At the end of the summer, she posted a picture of herself slumped over a book she was reading, having just completely passed out as a result of the medications the doctors were giving her to manage her pain. “Seriously, I’m just reading and I fall over? Pathetic….yet hysterical in its own special way,” she wrote. “Obviously, this provides plenty of entertainment for my husband. He’s probably got a collection going somewhere.”)
I will always remember her, though, as a runner. As an athlete. So many of the pictures folks are posting include our friend with a racing bib on. On many of my runs in October I ran them thinking of our friend, trying to do what I was so clearly fucking blessed and able to do because she couldn’t. To attempt with humility and grace each day something that would honor our friend who was nearing the end of her journey on this planet.
I failed a lot. This week I sort of threw in the towel. There has been candy and sleeping and an extra beer here and there. There has been a lot of putting on the ol’ brave face at work, ducking in and out of places to cry and get it over with. There has been a lot of praying.
(Mostly my prayers have looked like, “God! Help!” which I suppose can be the most effective kind there is.)
And now she’s gone.
So I’m just going to pick myself back up and get on with it. My friend loved a good fresh juice, and that’s a good start. Tonight my girlfriends and I are getting together to do some yoga, so I’ll set some intentions so hard and so furiously that I hope they’ll reach heaven and my friend. Tomorrow I’ll get up and run again.
And tonight, today, for as long as I can, I’ll hug and kiss my loved ones because it’s what you do when you realize that nothing’s promised to us ever and we’re all so damn lucky.
