What I’m Reading: It Had to Be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
What I’m Working On: Holding it together
My friend died yesterday.
She was 38. Barely. Her birthday was last month.
She had acute leukemia. What a horrible disease. Two and a half months ago she was healthy, laughing and joking with me at a high school football game.
Last night she died. Her son is 7.
I don’t understand.
It should not have been her.
Not yet. Not yesterday.
Can’t we all have just one more tomorrow?
I’ve never seen anyone’s eyes dance quite like hers did when she would watch her red-headed little boy. Perfect peace. Perfect happiness.
I really think that for just a little while the world should stop. Birds should stop flying. The wind should cease to blow. Everyone should freeze and take a moment to be still. For my friend.
But that doesn’t happen. We’re such fragile, irreverent beings. The world is massive compared to us. It keeps on moving, and we accept that. What else can we do?
Dogs bark. Cars whiz by. The world moves on.
People continue to live. And, of course, she would have wanted that.
But I want it to stop. I want to feel the gasp of humanity at the loss of such an amazing person. Just a pause. To mourn.
And I want to break the silence with a shout of anger. This is not what I was praying for! Did You need her that badly? We needed her, too.
Her name is still in my phone. The text messages to her to say, “I love you.” Her replies from the hospital, “Come sing for me so I can laugh.”
Smile and cry. Smile and cry.
M
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Mourning
Posted by Macy O'Neal at 8:54 PM
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1 comments:
Hi M. I'm so sorry about Gina. I totally understand about wanting the world to stop, about wanting everything and everyone to just stop and mourn for at least a fricking second, and just acknowledge the big gaping hole, the big mess emotionally and otherwise, the huge loss, left behind. I've felt that. It's so hard when someone is so young, too. It magnifies it all because it wasn't supposed to happen. It doesn't make sense. All I can offer is hugs and a few moments of stopping and acknowledging. I know it sucks. It's horrible. In the end, the fact that the world keeps spinning and everything keeps going is reassuring in a weird way. But not right now. I remember going into a Walgreens after a very loved boyfriend died. I think it was two weeks later. And I'd lost 12 lbs or something, maybe more. The lady at the register was going on and on about something and how skinny I looked and blah, blah, blah, and I said, "Can you just . .. just stop. I just need you to stop." She looked at me quizzically, of course.
So I said, "My boyfriend's dead and I can't handle very much. I just need everything to stop. I don't want to talk. I don't want to be here. I just. .. don't." She waited a second and then was like, "Well, can I ring this up?" Ha!
Sorry. I don't mean to go off on my own story here. I'm just saying I get it. And I'm sorry.
Love ya,
Alyson
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