Last night I had conversations with four of my oldest and most valued friends. I wish we didn’t have the reason that we all talked, but that we did made me feel better than I had in the twenty-four hours previous. I hope that was the case for all of us. Mostly for Denis, because on New Year’s Day he lost his dad.
I’d been feeling blue about it on a number of levels. Mostly because someone I love is torn up; he’s been hit, unexpectedly, with life’s cruellest circumstance. His dad was a really lovely man; a husband in a seemingly inseparable partnership, a good father and pépé and neighbour and respected teacher and now he’s gone.
If I’m not censoring (it’s a start, Lisa), I’ll tell you that this is one of the two situations in the past year that threw my own mortality in my face. Hard. It sounds so selfish. My heart is truly with my friend, but a feeling of scared came swift and forceful. A parent is only one generation away.
I have all my parents – and none seems like s/he is going anywhere soon. But I got scared about losing them. They’re still too young. Like Denis’s dad. He shouldn’t have gone yet; his family’s hearts shouldn’t be heavy now. And yesterday evening I was wondering how to move out of the sudden funk – how could I call my friend and be supportive and somehow make it a little better when I felt like I was teetering on some thin emotional wire; psychically a piece of shit?
And then after supper I talked to Debbie. And then Denis. And then Robbie. And then Lynn. And at the end of the evening I was back on terra firma. I’m sure it’s because each of them were part of the journey to now. Last night I'd got away from the moment and they brought me back to it.
We all exist here in this unstoppable march of time and we all have to face it, and most of us deal with loss when it happens and maybe we don’t get over it but we learn to move on and to be happy again even if there is a new hole in the family’s fabric. But then again, isn't the fabric richer and more beautiful for that person having been a part of it?
The fabric is precious and beautiful and it’s all any of us has. And I’m not that articulate, but I’m sure it’s pretty much the point of it all.
