Missing My Friend

 

Today, especially, I am reminded of how fragile and unpredictable life is.

A friend from graduate school, a beautiful, kind, sweet, intelligent journalist, died a couple of nights ago. I saw a post from a classmate and then saw her husband shared the news from her FB page. She was unconscious since Tuesday after a completely unexpected braid bleed. He said she never awoke and died peacefully surrounded by family and friends. For that I'm thankful. I can't imagine what this is like for her husband and family. I'm so so sorry for their loss.

I'm also sorry for my loss. Donna was not someone I was especially close to during grad school. I got to know her better over the last decade when I chatted with her at the last two reunions in NYC. She was so down to earth and sweet. Just lovely.

She was especially kind to me in 2015 when we sat together at lunch and, as you do, we talked about our lives in recent years. I'd lost both of my parents, a young cousin, a beloved aunt, beloved pets, all within just a couple of years. I'd also had to file a lawsuit against a bullying neighbor who thought he could take advantage of me when I was down.

I was feeling pretty vulnerable but healing and moving forward. Donna listened. Really listened. And after the reunion she took the time to write me an incredibly kind and encouraging note. It was so uplifting yet validating of what I'd been through. She seemed to truly get where I was and what I needed to hear — not everyone does.

We stayed in touch. We got together when I was in LA last March. We had dinner with her husband Ben. I felt like Donna had a really nice time. She even suggested a couple more times we could get together before I left.

We just connected. We had things in common.

She talked of wanting to come to Detroit to visit in the near future and I said I'd be happy to show them around. I encouraged her to attend a conference in LA in August. We were hoping to get together again then. She offered to make time to grab a bite to eat or a drink near LAX right before my red eye flight. Just to get together once more. I was really touched by that and was so sorry I couldn't make it work.

But I was incredibly thankful for this lovely new friendship we seemed to be forging, as people do when they reconnect through the years, when common experiences bring new connections with old friends.

I feel such a loss.

Thank God she suffered no pain. I'm glad she was surrounded by those she loved. She seemed happy and content with her life. Why it happened? There are no answers and life is not fair.

And so I'm reminded how fragile life is, how unpredictable. So show those you love your love and tell them often.

(Image with group including Donna from 2015 reunion in front of Columbia University's J-school. Donna is the lovely brunette on the far right.)

On Being There

 
I spent last Thanksgiving with my father in his hospital room, where I’d been with him day and night for nearly two weeks. My father had decided he no longer wanted to live. It was understandable.

We were both deep in grief over the loss of my mother just two months earlier. She, like him, had been in and out of the hospital over the previous few years, struggling with one serious health challenge after another. Her last hospitalization, which resulted in an emergency surgery she never recovered from, ended in an ICU, my hand holding hers as she lost her battle with a blood infection.

It was a horrible struggle for me to let my father go so soon after losing my mother. Yet I had to remind myself that he’d probably have let go sooner had it not been for her, his wife of more than 56 years.

After breaking his hip then discovering he had metastatic cancer, he’d grown to detest the dialysis he’d been on for five years. I reminded myself of the days I had to send my mother in to convince him to dialyze, to stay alive. “Do it for me,” she’d say. “I want you to outlive me.”

And so he did. And then he was done.

He told me he loved me dearly, that it wasn’t that he wanted to die, but he didn’t want to live “like this,” on dialysis, no longer strong and independent as he’d always been.

I didn’t get to hold my father’s hand as I held my mother’s. He passed away early that Saturday morning after Thanksgiving as I slept a few feet away.

But I was there. And for that, I am grateful.

I was there. And I’d been there.

I was there for my parents for three years, as one health challenge after another befell them until one day I realized I was their caregiver. I was in charge of their doctors’ appointments and home care, scheduling X-rays, chemo and physical therapy. I could recite their complicated medical histories without notes and go over their long lists of medications by brand name or generic. I even ran my father’s dialysis for him, which he did at home. Beyond that, I was managing their bills, grocery shopping, and feeding the cats.

Many days I was overwhelmed — sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally — but never spiritually.

As often as my heart broke for my parents, and sometimes for myself, I was also, and increasingly so, grateful for so many things. I feel that still. Maybe more so.

Thank God I could be there for them. Thank God I had my health and abundant energy. Thank God I had a good mind to understand their medical issues so well I was often assumed to be a medical professional. I was a good advocate.

More, I was a good daughter. I was told that often. Maybe too often.
I learned I was rare. We live in times when it’s difficult for children to care for their aging parents, to allow their parents to stay in their own homes, cared for and surrounded by those they love.

Not everyone can afford to cut back on a career or even put one on hold to care for their parents, or to move in with them, or to uproot their own family from the other side of the country. Not everyone is emotionally equipped to handle caregiving.

But for whatever reason, I could do that for them. And I know how much they appreciated me. I’m so grateful for that.

As I shared at my father’s memorial, I gave my parents a gift of myself those years, but it was also a gift to myself.


This first appeared on The Good Men Project, Nov. 28, 2013.

A Month of Thankfulness: On Being There

Thanksgiving has new meaning for me. 

I'm glad I could be with my father last year.

Please click on the link: 

http://goodmenproject.com/one-month-of-thankfulness/a-month-of-thankfulness-on-being-there-hesaid/

Not Quite the End

It was New Year’s Eve when I realized it might finally be over. You let me down. I burned with pain. But I endured the night with a smile. I wouldn’t let anyone know that I couldn’t take it any more.

I didn’t want it to end. But I needed a break.

For so many years you lifted me up. Literally. You made me feel tall, beautiful, confident. So grown up. So fabulous.

You in all your incarnations through every season, always there to raise me up when I needed it.

But the punishment took its toll.

I spent too many years ignoring this hurt and that. Not wanting to give you up. Not wanting to admit that you were simply not good for me.

I’d see all those other women, so happy. If they could have that, why not me?

So I didn’t want to admit it just might not be working out. I still don’t want to admit it. I don’t want it to be over. I would do anything to keep you in my life.

I remember being too young for you, dreaming of the day I could finally have you. We’ve had many blissful years since. Sure, I've felt pain now and then. But the pain never lasted too long. I always got through it.

Now, though, it’s gotten to be too much. Dare I say — and I don’t want to say it — you scare me. I’m a little afraid of you. And that’s the hardest thing of all to admit.

I just knew if didn’t make a break, something terrible and irreversible might happen.

So there we are. I miss you, terribly. So many reminders of you everywhere only makes it harder.

Quite simply, I can't imagine life without you. I don't think I could take that. I refuse to accept it.

But the break has been good. I'm taking care of myself and the pain has subsided.

I now feel ready to try again, just baby steps, to see if we can make another go of it.

Last night was wonderful. If only for a few hours. Oh I felt a little sting now and then but you were pretty good to me.

I will see you again. I just know it.

Because I cannot imagine life without you.

(Well, maybe I could live without you four-inch heels.)


(By the way: That gorgeous illustration above is available here: https://www.allposters.com/-sp/Highheels-Obsession-Posters_i1665533_.htm)