Sacred

There are things that are sacred.  Childhood friends are one of them.  Especially those you haven’t seen since entering adulthood.  Those friends, who affected you profoundly for one reason or another, but exist only in your childhood.  They are sacred and should remain ever so.

One of my sacred childhood friends died of cancer today.  She is a person I haven’t thought of for a long, long time, but the minute I did, immense, colorful, warm, bright memories flooded back to me immediately.  She had tangles of gorgeous brown curly hair.  Lovely hazel eyes.  The biggest smile you’ve ever seen.  And I remember a very specific conversation we had about being a tomboy, “It’s fine to run with the boys, Sha.  I always have too.  I’ll bet you can run faster if you try, can’t you? “  Looking at the ground, I answered shyly, “Maybe.”  I could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “I run fast too, but I never leave the house without my lipstick.  I want to make sure they remember why they’re chasing me.” 

I can recall that moment, the setting in which it took place, the look on her face, the color of her lipstick as she put it on her lips.  The sound of her feet on the wooden floorboards as she drug me from the room back into the meadow.  I can remember it as if it were yesterday instead of almost 20 years ago.

She was loved.  She laughed easily and often.  She was beautiful and she glowed from inside.  People were drawn to her.  And I watched her from the shadows with a sense of awe as I could never in a million years imagine what it would feel like to be that adored.  But she always tried to pull me in.  We danced like crazy.  We sang like crazy.  We smoked cloves on the balcony and I listened to her tell stories. 

We never kept in touch.  I don’t think we ever really tried.  It was a friendship that was entirely contained by the magic of the place and time.  And, for me, it was still there.  Encased by the safety that such things innately carry with them.  Or so I thought.  I have no idea who she was when she took her last breath today.  I have no idea if she was married or had children to leave behind. 

And I don’t wish that was different.  This is not a post of regret.  There is, however, a tremendous amount of sadness in the face of losing something so bright, so utterly vibrant.  And there is a sense of deeper loss in knowing that those sacred things, those things that should be left in their velvet containers, are vulnerable.

That there is a sense of vulnerability that is absolute.  With all things and all people.  

Absence

I'm tired. Tired of forcing myself to be in this place of constant celebration. Tired of trying to pretend like it's ok that
my Dad and Laurel and the girls are no longer on this planet. Tired of missing them. It seems like lately, all I can feel is the
absolute absence of them. And I miss them all desperately.

I'm not sure I've ever felt this level of missing. When you move or don't see someone for a long time, years even, there's always this thought in your head that the possiblity of seeing them again could be pretty much whenever you both want it to happen. It's the possibility that keeps you grounded, balanced in the act of missing someone. You know they're still there, even if you don't have direct access to them. But now, now there is no access to my Dad or Laurel or the girls. They are simply gone. Yes, I have all the amazing memories. And I can still hear their voices in my head and see their facial expressions in my mind's eye when I go looking for them. But it's not the same. Because even though those memories and voices and expressions are magical and alive and gorgeous, they are stagnant. Outside of my imagination, they will never grow or age or change.

They have become absent. In every permanent meaning of the word. And the realization of that, the actual physical acceptance of that fact has begun. And it's made me very tired.

It takes an extraordinary amount of energy to hold onto possiblity. To hold onto that which is passed and past. And I have routed all of my energy over the last 10 months to that possibility, to the hope of never truly losing them.

And this really has nothing to do with the "but you'll always have them in your heart and memories" kind of thinking or the "but they're safe and free in heaven" either. Because I know I have my memories of them; I am awash with their memories daily. And I know they are free in the universe, glorious and alight with love. And does this knowledge bolster me? Sometimes, most times. But really, it's the physical absence of them in this world that is so hard for me right now. My children's memories of their Papa will fade, despite my best efforts. Elijah will move on from fishing. Nora will move on from sitting on laps to read stories. There will come a day when not every rainbow brings Laurel and the girls to mind and I won't cry every time I hear Ingrid Michaelson.

Those tangible triggers will fade. And then their absence will be complete. And when it comes right down to it, the world is a little less than for me without them in it. Struggling to make it otherwise is exhausting.

Today is Zoe's birthday. I've never known two girls who looked more forward to their birthdays than Zoe and Nora Lee. And to each other's as well. It seems wrong to not be thinking about what to get her for her birthday. To not have Nora make her a card. To not be talking birthday party planning with Laurel. To have all of that celebration be simply absent.

There have been so many "firsts" in the last three months. First holidays without them all. First birthdays gone by with them no longer here to celebrate. And with the passing of each one, it's driven it home just a little more for me. The depth of their absence from my life and the world at large. Each one has sucked just a little more wind out of me, pulled open the hole at my center just the tiniest bit more. It feels like instead of healing, this stage of acceptance has just exascerbated the wound further.

I miss them. I need them. Every day. Perhaps the real healing comes after acceptance.