Tag: death

missing my friend on her fiftieth birthday

I should be out to lunch, raising a glass, giving a toast, and celebrating one of my dearest friends’ fiftieth birthdays today, but she is no longer here. She passed away one year and nine months ago, leaving behind a husband and two darling teenaged daughters.

I miss Anna so much at times that my heart hurts. I’ve lost parents (both of them) and parents-in-law (both of them too), but nothing has wrenched my heart as much as losing my dear, dear friend. Not only do I lament the days I personally didn’t get to spend with her (and her fiftieth birthday would have been a big one, at that), I am saddened for the stuff she is missing, like seeing her daughters ace the SATs or watching them drive off for the first time on their own, brand-new driver’s licenses in their wallets. She’ll never get to see them collect their diplomas or their degrees, or walk them down the aisle for the last time as single ladies. She’ll never meet her grandchildren, call them by name, or see what color their eyes are or who they favor in appearance, their beautiful daughter or the putz she married. She’ll never get to spend her husband’s retirement traveling or doing the things one just can’t do when there’s a full-time worker in the household and he has a schedule to keep to. She’ll never get to age gracefully or die naturally.

I, of course, am especially sad for the girls. They’ll never get to do spa days with their mom or listen to lectures about boys and fast cars and what to not do on grad night. From October 2014 on they’ve been without the one woman they should have been able to rely on for advice, support, and love for the rest of their lives.

And I’m sad for her husband, my friend, who wakes up to an empty bed in the morning and sees the same image when laying down his head every night. He turns fifty tomorrow too, but since that fateful day in 2014, there has not been any celebrating on these two days in June that used to be so joyous.

I know if there is a heaven and if God lets in those good folks who are not card-carrying members, which I hope is the case, Anna’s up there watching her family and friends carrying on. She’s whipping up her magnificent eggrolls for the lord above and planning the day when we can all again sit around the table as she blows out candles.

I miss you and I love you, Anna.

 

where do i start?

I cannot believe so much time has passed since I last sat down to type words into this blog. So much has happened that I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

The meat of it, though, is mostly bad: My mother passed away. One of my dearest friends passed away. Then my mother-in-law passed away. It’s been a lot of pain. It’s been a lot of tears.

I was in the midst of all of it too. I wasn’t a bystander waiting at the curb a good distance from where the action occurred. I was rolling in the mud. I was toiling in the muck. I was in the hospitals, the nursing homes, at the chemotherapy infusion centers, in the hospital cafeteria explaining to two preteens that their mother has cancer and, by the way, I can’t tell you this but she will die sooner than you’d like. I was at the graveside. I saw the flames and felt the heat from the crematory.

I wish I could erase 2013 and 2014 from my life, to not have to live through the pain, feel the sting of hot tears running down my cheeks, and most of all, not have to say goodbye to three of the most influential people in my life. But it happened. It will happen to all of us. It would have been a bit easier if it didn’t happen all at once. And if there weren’t casualties left behind.

But I’m still here and I will share my thoughts and my voice. I am still here.