In memoriam
I almost didn’t begin this entry, thinking it would be too difficult to transition into writing again, after such a long sabbatical. But, in realizing that I don’t have to exactly capture every event in summation over the course of seven months is of relief from an inconsequential, self-imposed burden.I stopped writing these ridiculously egocentric admissions and observations after my first big move because I was busy, and thus mindfully occupied. And then, I continued to leave the page blank in both web and journal form because I became idle, then lazy. But, just as I began to get just listless enough to miss the fluidity of words formed, incongruent with the click clack of tapping on a keyboard, something happened that will forever change everything. I stopped writing because I was inconsolable and devastated.
In December, a few days before I was scheduled to go home for Christmas, I received the news that someone close to me had died. In word consideration, I could have used passed away, passed on, or a plethora of other masked meanings. But in true essence is its harsh truth. One of my very best friends, whom I had just seen just five months prior, did not live to see his twenty-sixth birthday. In a rush of sadness, emotion, and disbelief, I ran through the gamut of attending his funeral service in consolation with friends and family who had experienced his loss deeply. I cried the weighty, hot tears that matched everyone else’s, but yet held a portion of my heart to hope that it was all a mistake. I lived in this denial den of hibernation for weeks on end, and expected the epiphany to hit me like an unexpected thunderclap in the silence of night. But it didn’t. I’m gradually beginning to feel the heartache more deeply than ever, enumerated by the knowing grief that it’s taken entirely too long to understand that he’s gone from my life, never returning to smile goofily or joke about my many indecisions. But, not so being naïve to think that I was the only one to grieve, I’ve been in pretty consistent contact with his mom, whom I last talked to on Mother’s Day, and coincidentally also the day that he would have graduated from veterinary school. I spoke to her that evening, and she didn’t try to choke back the emotions as she told me how proud she was to stand in his place to accept his doctorate degree that he had worked so long to achieve, and explained that there will never be any reprieve for a mother who has lost her child no matter how much time passes. I think about him every day still, in some manner. Mostly I recall one of the many moments in the 8 years that I was so fortunate enough to have befriended someone who brightened others lives with his quirky and charismatic appeal, and forged on with intention regardless of social consequence. He was my friend, my best friend, and I’ll miss him.
I don’t sense it much, but I know I’ve changed. Many of the simple, sheer joys of prior allude me now displaced with worry; worries that something similar will happen to those close to me, that in an instant, I’ll have to face loss and despair again. But in the same manner, I appreciate and am grateful for the relationships that have grown, the depths to which are rooted in my very being now. For that, I spend much less time burrowed in a thick, ink smudged journal, and even less time behind the incandescent glow of a computer screen. Those I love know I love them, and I feel blessed to have been, and be, loved.
But the desire to leave something behind, to be able to also remember the details of a particularly lovely day or encounter are still prevalent, and with that, I continue my little forays into writing, and feel joyful that I have events and people to write about.
posted by Sheila @ 5/31/2007 03:45:00 PM
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