There is no good way to start this.
This is something that isn’t supposed to happen.
In our minds we imagine a sort of order to life. You are born, you grow into adulthood, you get married, you have children, maybe even grandchildren. Then, at some unknown older age, you leave this world. Death is a subject that no one likes to talk about, but we all have it in the back of our minds as we see the people around us. We all know without saying it that we will one day bury the ones we love, like I buried my mother. We believe that there is a certain order to how lives are lived and eventually end.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
I lost a friend recently. I learned about her passing while sitting in the computer lounge of my mental health clinic trying to pass the time on Facebook. That was when I saw that she was gone, and it hit me like a brick smashing into my heart. Her smiling face was the first thing I thought of, and then I realized that the world would never see that smile again.
There’s so many things I could say about her. I could tell you about the memories I have of her, and all the joy she brought into my life in the time that our lives crossed paths. I could tell you about how amazingly kind she was, and how she one of the few people that reached out to me when I first went through the symptoms of my then undiagnosed bipolar disorder. I could tell you about how proud of her I was, even in law school. I could tell you that she was one of those successful people you never envied because her love was so infectious. I could tell you that she had so much potential, and that I was proud that she made it so far.
I could tell you that even though we became separated by circumstance, distance, and time, I never failed to smile when I saw her smile pop up on my feed.
And now she’s gone, and I miss her, and I miss the time we could have had together. I wish that I had done more, said more, connected more, done anything; because I never would have thought that our time together in this world would have been so short.
I’ll grieve, I’ll probably cry again as I reread this, but I’ll remember her. Maybe the power and the impact she had on me is so great because, even after all this time without talking, it hurts so much to know that she’s gone. Maybe the fact that I can still remember her laugh and her smile means that I’ll be able to keep a part of her with me. Maybe the fact that she brought so much light into this world makes up for the fact that she left so soon.
Maybe.
In the end, she’s gone, and I never got the chance to say goodbye. I would have told her all of this, and how much love I had for her for being there when I needed a friend and for how much richer she made my life. I’m not going to lie and pretend that we were the closest of friends, or that we talked all the time. She was someone from my past that I only thought fondly of, and someone who’s continued presence I took for granted. Now that she’s no longer with us, I have to figure out what it means to lose a friend like this. I have to figure out how to make sure I don’t let myself lose time with others. I have to figure out how to keep her memory alive within me.
I don’t have any answers because all of this is just so much to handle, so hard to understand, so difficult to make sense of. I will never know the why, why G-d would take someone so young, in their prime, so deserving of a long and prosperous life. All I can do is cry, and hope that tomorrow I cry a little less. That, and remember her. Remember her joy. Remember her kindness. Remember her strength.
And always remember her smile, the one that I still can’t help smiling back at with tears.
Missing you, hoping to see you again one day. I’ll never forget you, our queen of the rose garden.