Loss

I just learned yesterday that one of my friends, a member of my book group, passed away unexpectedly on Friday. So far there is no explanation -- she had been feeling sick for a couple of days, and then was found at her home, unresponsive. It is too soon, too fresh, to say anything remarkable about this.  But I felt the urge to write something down, to say that she had such a joyous laugh, and a beautiful smile.  She could get infectiously excited.  She had a fun, sometimes sarcastic, sense of humor.  She taught me new things about food, and books, and writing.

She had just moved a few months ago to Colorado, to be with a boyfriend she had met in the last year.  I could see from her pictures how happy they were together -- blissful, and domestic, with new Christmas stockings and a new dog.  She was a writer; she was working on a book.  Right at this moment I can't decide whether it is wonderful to die at a moment of happiness, contentment -- or whether it is awful to die right at a moment of happiness, contentment.  Both, I guess.  Both, of course it is both.

This should be all about her, this should be memories of her, I should not be thinking of myself and my own life but of course I am.  Of course the loss of a friend, a young friend, makes me think of my own vulnerability.  It makes me wonder whether I am living each day as I should.  It makes me think of my son, of being a mother -- because I am thinking of her mother, and I am crushed; my heart and lungs are completely and utterly crushed flat so that I gasp for a breath, when I think of losing a child.  And that makes me think of my grandmother, who lost her daughter, and my aunt, who lost her daughter.  And I think also of my husband's friend from college, another young friend, who died unexpectedly last year.  And I think of the two women I had known in high school who died in the last year and a half -- one from cancer, the other from complications following lymphoma treatments.  And I think, how can I know this many people my own age who are dying?  Am I at the age now, when people die?  Or have the stars misaligned?

And then I feel sorry for making this about me, about my experience, because even though I am experiencing the loss of my friend, this is about a young woman with a beautiful smile, an infectious excitement, a woman in the midst of making her own happiness, a woman who was a daughter, and a friend, and a lover.

I admired her for many things, but one of them was her bold, courageous decision to write a book.  So today, I am writing this raw little piece of writing and publishing it here without worrying what anyone thinks because "just write! just do it" is one of the things that my friendship with her taught (or re-taught, reminded) me.  And I hope that I will keep remembering to write, and to live every day to the fullest, because the world, though beautiful and wonderful, can be so deeply unfair.

Wherever you are, Erin, I wish you peace.