On beer shirts and saying goodbye

It’s hard to sum up a person in words. You can describe them- their personality, their looks, tales and stories of things they did, and share their words of wisdom…but words and paragraphs can’t fully capture the look of a person. The way someone’s eyes crinkle in just such a way that is uniquely theirs when they smile, or the feeling you get when they say your name in a certain way. The subtle glances exchanged over inside jokes, or the way you can send a silent message of understanding that only comes from the heart of a deep friendship. The familiar scent, the sound of a laugh, the weight of an arm around your shoulder, or the gentle pat of a hand- all these things are beyond the description of words. It’s a feeling of someone. And when they’re gone- you’re left with an emptiness that also defies description.

My friend Maria was… one of the greatest people I’ve ever known. I’ve known her since I was 15- that right there ought to tell you something. Teenagers are not fun. And the fact that she looked past my sullen, grumpy, mixed up teenager attitude and still saw something redeeming… says a lot about her. I remember the first time I met her was when I grudgingly went to dinner with her and my parents. I think I was probably the epitome of a sullen teenager who would rather be anywhere than at a boring work dinner. Boy was I wrong. I liked her instantly. She spoke to me like an adult. She didn’t ask me what I wanted to be when I “grew up”, or how I liked school, or any of the other ridiculous questions adults seem to like to ask kids. She asked about my interests, and my thoughts and opinions on things. She was definitely one of the coolest adults I’d ever met. After that initial dinner, I went with them often when they’d get together. My parents were out of town when the terrorist attacks happened on September 11. My parents couldn’t get back home, and didn’t want my sister and I to be alone. Maria, a government employee working in D.C., came without hesitation. Driving probably a good three hours to stay overnight with my sister and I so we wouldn’t be alone, just to turn around and have to drive back early the next morning. I’ve never forgotten that. Her presence was calming in the midst of a tragedy beyond comprehension. In the days and weeks after the attacks, I was convinced that my dad was going to be re-called from retirement into the military and would have to go to war. I finally e-mailed Maria and asked her what she thought, (probably hoping she’d have some inside-information and could tell me if he would have to go.) I still have the e-mail she sent back to me: “I don’t think this is something you need to worry about, but I won’t lie and tell you that it isn’t a possibility. Right now things are pretty uncertain. But I will tell you that if they get to a point where they have to recall old retired farts like your dad (sorry dad!), then we’re all screwed anyway.” That of course, was Maria.

One year she asked me if I’d be interested in riding with her for a charity bike ride- 150 miles in two days along the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I think that’s really when I stopped seeing her as just my dad’s friend and she became my friend as well. You spend a lot of hours together when you train for a long bike ride. We’d meet halfway, or sometimes I would drive to her house and spend the weekend. She had a way of listening without judging. She never made me feel like I was whining. She gave you advice without lecturing. And she was able to maintain a distinct line between being both a friend to my parents, and a friend to me. She listened to me complain about my parents, and I’m sure she listened to my parents complain about me. She saw me as Melissa, not Wayne and Peggi’s daughter. And she saw my parents as Wayne and Peggi, not Melissa’s parents. Not many people can do that so effortlessly, and make it work so well.

When I think of Maria, I think of how her eyes were always smiling. I think about the fact that she was who she was, and she didn’t care what anyone else thought. I think about her huge heart, her contagious laugh, and the way she walked. She walked on the balls of her feet, so she always had a little bounce in her step. I could pick her out of a crowd anywhere. I think of the last time I saw her a few months back. She looked so happy. Happier than I’d seen her in a long time. She and Rimas, her partner, came to South Carolina with a golf group. I drive down to meet them for dinner. It was the first time I’d seen her since I moved south, and now I am so thankful I took the time to see them.

Her service is tomorrow. Well, I say service, but it’s actually a celebration of life. She did not want a funeral, so her family is having a celebration at a military country club. Attire is jeans and your favorite beer t-shirt: no suits. She is my hero.

But I’m not going.

I thought long and hard, and did a lot of soul-searching. I can come up with a million plausible excuses: It’s a really long drive, and I just did it last weekend. Plane tickets are too expensive. I’d have to fly into a different airport, and it’s not convenient for someone to come get me. But when it all comes down to it, they’re just excuses that could be worked around. The real reason I’m not going, all excuses set aside, is simply because:

I don’t want to.

I don't want to remember her in a room surrounded by a crowd of people I don't know, pretending to celebrate, but still saying goodbye. I don't want to hear stories just yet. Even though it's what she wanted, I am not ready to celebrate her life. I still need to mourn her loss. No, back up. I still need to accept the fact that she's gone, and I'm not there yet. I'm still stuck in the "I can't believe it isn't true" phase.

I am just not ready to say another goodbye.

And you know what? I think Maria would completely understand that. So I’m going to celebrate her life in my own way. Since I don't have a beer shirt I’m going to wear my shirt she bought me from the Tequila Mockingbird restaurant on one of our bike rides, I’m going to find a quiet spot on the lake, and I’m going to have a margarita and drink to my friend’s memory.

And the world’s going to keep on-turning, the memories still churning. Hearts continue breaking, and souls are still aching. But the world keeps moving, and memories start soothing, giving healing to a sorrow that has no words.

15 Words or Less Photo Poetry~ Taking my bike and going home

Because I need to think about something light.....

Bicycle for two
just me and you
started a fad
'cause I got mad;
and split the bike in two.

The words keep churning, the heart's still burning...

I’m not sure where to start.

Words are my solace. My emotions spill out in black and white type, and through fingers flying over a keyboard. I picture the inside of my soul as one big jumble of squiggly black letters, just waiting to be released. Thoughts are formed, sentences are strung together, brilliant and inspired thoughts are born… only to be caught because....

I never know where to begin.

I can’t seem to find the release button, and so the words stay churning, and the hurts keep burning. I can't give voice to my emotions. Writing gives me the freedom of release- of revising and sorting through the jumble of letters and extracting exactly what I want to say. But when it comes to tragedy- the time when I need the strength of words the most, I flounder at the beginning. I can't sort it out because there’s no beginning, and what’s worse is that there’s no ending, because grief is that nasty circle that just keeps spinning. Somehow putting the catalyst of the breaking of a heart into a simple sentence seems so... so mockingly…. normal. There should be better words. There should be an easier way to begin. And there isn't.

My friend Maria died this weekend. And the news came on the heels of a weekend visit to Pennsylvania to attend the memorial service of a friend who passed away from cancer two weeks ago. Two lives, two deaths. One older, one younger. One expected, the other a tragic shock that I still can’t comprehend. Is one worse? Is one loss easier to deal with than the other? The answer is no. There is nothing in death that is easy to deal with. The answer is no, but with a caveat. The answer is no, but one is easier to accept, as callous as that may sound.

I liked Charlie a great deal. He was a good man- with a kind heart and a laugh that I can still hear in my head. His presence will be missed. Cancer robbed us of a good man- but also a man who had lived a long 75 years. Death hurts, but there is a slight consolation in the knowing that he is free from suffering. And these thoughts alone break my heart. These thoughts break my heart in the realization that because I’ve been touched by so many deaths of friends and family I can now measure it by the degrees of acceptance. My heart is calloused, and I don’t like it.

But Maria? My mind refuses to accept her death. I saw her four months ago. She celebrated a birthday three days ago. She told me via facebook that the next time we got together she wanted to be on the other end of the photos of my cooking experiments. I told her that hopefully once I have my house, she’d even get a place to stay out of the deal. Plans that will now never be. A friend whose beautiful smile and gentle encouragements are lost forever. How does a seemingly healthy woman in her early forties have a heart attack?

I’m mad. No, I take that back. I’m furious. I’m pissed off and ready to thoroughly throttle the first person that dares to look at me cross-eyed. I want to crawl into a room and stay there forever and stop having friends because it hurts too damn much when they leave me.

I wrote a poem once that contained the line; “even the most broken of hearts is never beyond what God can mend”. I used to believe that wholeheartedly. It’s what I clung to when I thought my heart was shattered. Now, I’m not so sure. I think the heart has limits, and I’m reaching mine.

I know that grief has cycles. And I know that life moves on. My heart will hurt and break and mend, my life will go on, and that the days will come when the thought of Maria will bring a bittersweet sigh. I’ll tell stories with a smile, and the stitches of the broken hole in my heart with her name on it will fade to a dull ache instead of the piercing pangs of the present.

But instead of bringing comfort, that thought brings tears. I’m tired of becoming used to moving on. I’m tired of accepting death after death. I don’t want to resign myself to passing through the grief process and knowing that I am going to make it through, that I will smile and laugh and joke and move on with my life. Instead, the five year old me is wailing and stomping her feet, and she is demanding that the world simply stop and wait for her broken heart to mend. To her, life simply isn’t fair. She wants answers and is refusing to listen to the voice of Time and Reason.
I start to count the people I’ve loved and lost and somehow the ratios don’t seem to balance out. I’ve said goodbye to too many people in my 28 years. In my grief-tainted thoughts, it’s more than my fair share.

And I don’t understand.

Yes, this post is all about me. I wanted to write about Maria- I wanted to give her a tribute fitting for a dearly loved friend. Maybe in a few days I can write about her, and the friend that she was, the friend that she will always be, and the many, many ways she touched my life and my heart. Those words are there. They’re forming in the depths of my soul, even though I’m doing my best to not acknowledge them because I’m wounded and hurt and not in the frame of mind to let them be. They will form and break through and maybe even bring healing. But for now, for today, the only thing that my heart can hold is the knowing that it has been stretched to just about it’s breaking point. That the constant mending and breaking is wearing thin, the seams are fragile, and that it’s liable to shatter into a million pieces.

The soul’s still aching, the world keeps breaking. And the words keep churning, and the heart's still burning with a sorrow that has no words.

When faith in the unknown doesn't cut it.

I saw a cat get hit by a car this weekend. In the big scheme of things, it was just an insignificant thing. But it's been on my mind since it happened. The scene played out in slow motion. Four lanes of traffic, and a little black cat caught in the median. I watched as he made a dash towards the side of the road. The car in front of me slowed down to miss him, but kitty got spooked and turned and went back towards median where he'd come from. My eyes were involuntarily squeezing shut as I somehow knew what was going to happen. The car in the next lane was unable to miss him. It struck the cat, and I watched as he flopped and scurried back across the lanes towards the side of the road, and then collapsed in the parking lot of a bank. I quickly turned in and went to check on him. He was still breathing, but suddenly I was unsure of what to do. There are two types of people in an emergency. The ones you want to be with and the ones you don't. I fall into the latter category. Do I touch him? I didn't want to move him and make his injuries worse. Do I call 911 for a cat? Where's the nearest vet? Do I have a blanket in the car? What do I do? As the thoughts went through my mind, I watched as he got a faraway look in his eyes, and then he stopped breathing. Just like that. When I looked closer, I saw he'd been hit pretty bad. Even if I hadn't hesitated, I don't think he would have made it. My friend told me the fact that he made it to the side was probably pure reflex. I hope so. I hope he wasn't hurting, and I hope he didn't suffer.

Like I said, it was a little insignificant event in the big scheme of things. But it's stuck with me. One wrong move, one split second decision changed a destiny- even if it was only that of a cat. If only he'd kept going, he'd have made it safely across the road. If the car that hit him had been going slightly slower, the cat might have made it back across. If I'd been in the second lane, maybe I'd have been more aware and missed him. If. If. If. Life is full of too many of them.

But what really got to me was that moment when life stopped. I've been touched by death, but I've never witnessed the actual moment when life stops. Now you're here. Now you're gone. And the world just keeps on going.

But where does the soul go? I can't seem to wrap my mind around the concept. I know people argue whether animals have souls. I myself firmly believe that some animals have more of a soul than alot of people I know, but that's another post in itself. But even though it was a cat, and regardless of whether you believe it has a soul.... I could see something shift in its eyes in that moment when he stopped breathing. Something changed. That spark, that thing that made it alive, went out... and for a moment the sounds of traffic faded, the surroundings blurred...and there was silence.

I'm sure I'm making a bigger deal than necessary out of the life of one little cat. But it's not so much about the cat, (although as an avid cat lover, I will confess that there was a tear or two that slipped out), it's just that the mysteries of life and death became a little too real again. And like everything else, it started me thinking about my sister, and generated thoughts about her last moments. Thoughts that I really didn't want to be thinking.

Did she know? Was she aware? Where is she now? And please, for the love of all things holy, do NOT tell me that she is in a better place, or that she's looking down from the heavenly skies, or that she didn't suffer, or any other such thing, as I cannot be held liable for what I'd do or say next. I am tired of platitudes and empty answers, no matter how well meaning the good intentions are behind them. Sure, there's theology and theories and beliefs and explanations and books and studies and thesises galore on the subject of the afterlife. But it's not proof. It's not definitive. It's not an answer. Or at least it's not the answer I want. Most days I get by with leaving the unknown in the hands of faith. Usually that's enough to drive away those nagging unanswered questions, but there are moments, phases if you'd like to call it, when my faith seems insurmountably too small, and all I really want is a satisfactory, concrete answer. This is one of those phases where faith isn't enough, where faith in the unknown simply does not cut it. I want it to be enough. I really do. But right now I want answers more. And of course, the only ones who hold the answer to the unknown.... can't tell you.


I wish someone could.

15 Words or Less Photo Poetry~ Brief Respite

Brief respite

Shed the weary load

if only for a moment

before braving

the world once more