On a beautiful, cold day at the end of October, I got dressed and prepared to meet up with my bestie for lunch.
I can so vividly remember standing in front of my mirror doing my makeup. Trying not to cry. Trying not to throw up. Feeling on the verge of a panic attack. Everything inside of me heightened. Breathe, breathe, breathe.
My girl fought for years to stay on this Earth, to be with us, to make more memories with us, to seize and squeeze whatever she could that was left out of her beautiful, at times heartbreaking, wonder filled life. But this lunch, it wasn’t just an ordinary lunch. It was the lunch to acknowledge the end was coming. How many “goodbyes” could we schedule in before the final one? A few weeks prior she had let us know that the cancer was back, it had spread, and time was much shorter now. The race against the clock had begun, again, but the finality of it weighed so much greater this time.
Being the optimists we were, we opted for the longer end of the estimate of time left and held onto hope so tightly. We sat at lunch, caught up like old friends do, laughed, shared tears, and held a little longer in hugs. But we planned to see each other again, next holiday was right around the corner. I’d come over for Thanksgiving break, a visit at her parents house, just like old times. The pandemic was in full effect, my best friend was dying, I just had my 2nd baby the year prior, and we had recently moved closer. I was so grateful for that last part. When we’re in such upheaval in our own lives, questioning did we make the right choices, did we make the right move, then something happens that makes it all click into place. If we hadn’t moved I never would have been able to spend that precious time together.
Thanksgiving break came and it suddenly became harder to get a hold of her. Last time, the diagnosis came hard, but slow. We traveled, we marinated in our time together. The three of us besties did everything we could together. This time, it came harder and faster. Too hard. Too fast. But is there ever a slow enough pace, when we have to let go of hope of things getting better? Is there ever such a thing as ‘enough time?’ I don’t ever think so.
I think I’ve written some rendition of this story at least a few times. If you know grief, you know it’s repetitive in nature most of the time. The importance of feeling your grief. The importance of telling and retelling your story. The importance of keeping your person alive with rich memory. The importance of processing the impact great loss has on you, on your life. The importance of sharing, so someone, somewhere feels a little more brave, and a little less alone.
I don’t really know that I have much of a happy ending narrative to this blog. I don’t really think all things grief require that. Maybe sometimes it’s ok just to just have permission to allow the story as it is, as you remember it, hope-filled to hopeless, and standing in the messy rubble of it all. It’s been almost 6 years since this memory, which actually sounds just insane to write how many years have passed since I’ve last seen her precious face in person, but inevitably, every Fall, every October, I feel the memory of that anxiety rise within me. Not every year with intensity, some years it’s more of a faint hum, a background sadness, an always missing you feeling.
And if you feel this too, with your own loss, in your own way, I hope you slow down, take long moments to honor what your body has had to endure, to hold on to such all encompassing sadness, and use all its energy just to crawl out of it. I hope you create a space to hold your grief and gratitude in the same hands. The mind may be conditioned to tell you to “keep going,” but listen to the quiet whisper of the body that says, “please slow down, let me heal, let me just allow space to miss them, please just let me be.”
