Goodnight, Travel Well

When my dad called me at work yesterday morning, I knew it wasn’t good news.

My great uncle had passed away last night, he told me. It was for the best, he said, and I could only agree with him. My uncle and I weren’t close, I had a few memories of him from my childhood and teen years. He was a quiet man with a quirky sense of humor. It was easy to see the resemblance between my grandmother and him. I didn’t cry, I simply gave my dad my condolences, hung up the phone and went back to work. Last night I thought about him before I went to bed, and I was thankful that he had been in my life, I sent comforting thoughts to his wife, I was sad.

I have always had a strange relationship with death. I remember finding dead animals (mostly cats) around our farm and sobbing over their furry little bodies, occasionally holding funerals for them. I have a vague picture in my head of standing in a graveyard when I was four or five years old, beside  my great grandmother’s casket. My clearest memory on this topic is my dad talking to me about what would happen if he and my mother suddenly passed away. I understand he wanted me to be prepared, but I had a hard time falling asleep for a few years when my parents were out, always half listening for the sound of the garage door.

So for as long as I can remember, death has been an inevitable force in my mind. Because of this, when I am confronted with it, my first response is to stay calm and accept it. No use crying over spilled milk, I can’t change anything now, what’s done is done, and so on...

It has been six months now since my dear friend Erica passed away. There was no warning, I’m still not sure if the doctors even know the exact cause. Looking back, my first response was not grief or sorrow. It was confusion. I didn’t know how to process this; I didn’t know how to feel. Erica was not an animal. She wasn’t old, hadn’t lived a full life. She wasn’t terminally or even seriously ill. It didn’t seem real to me that she was just so suddenly and abruptly gone. Let me be clear, I’m not a sociopath. Of course I wept, of course I made travel arrangements to go home. But it wasn’t until I was sitting in the church before the service, with only a few people scattered around, and looking up at her beautiful pictures that it hit me. The reality of that moment came rushing in and I felt like I was drowning in it.

Grief and regret flooded through me. I hadn’t called her when I was home for Christmas a few months ago. I hadn’t tried to see her. I couldn’t even remember if I had wished her a happy birthday last year. The day went on. I hugged her family and talked with old friends. I was washing my hands and avoiding my reflection in the bathroom mirror when two girls I didn’t know came in. One said “you’re Brittany right? We’ve heard so much about you.” Her friends knew who I was, yet I had no idea about them. How could I have been so selfish?

The question plagued me. I knew there was nothing I could say to her now, no way to apologize for being so self absorbed, so distant. I eventually decided that to honor her I would get a tattoo. Then I realized I don’t even like tattoos and that that was a stupid idea. So I thought about all the times she rolled her eyes at me when I started at myself in the mirror too long. I thought about how she reacted when a classmate of ours passed away in junior high. I thought about the night she confessed that she did, indeed, have feelings for her boss (which, incidentally, turned out to be mutual and grew into a very happy relationship). I recalled that no matter how long we went without talking or seeing each other, she was always excited and animated and ready to share with me, to catch up on each other’s lives. Erica was not afraid to express herself. She was brave enough to be sad, and she was courageous enough to be happy.

I have been doing my best to remember these qualities, and to adopt them as my own. That is how I choose to honor her. It’s so easy to get caught up in life’s problems, its hurts and dramas and disappointments...but at what cost? What moments and opportunities are passing you by?

A few weeks after I got back from her funeral, I dreamt about her. We were riding in a car together; as we often had to be chauffeured around before either of us had a license. We were talking and laughing when all of a sudden I realized that she shouldn’t be there, that she was ‘gone’. I went quiet and looked at her, confused. She looked back at me, smiled and said “it’s ok. I know. But it’s ok.” 

I still have a tendency to shut down in moments of intense emotion, though I managed to cry through most of Marley & Me just fine. It’s the real feelings that scare me, that make me want to run and hide. It’s shame that tries to trap me, to hold me down in regret. Erica was truly a beautiful person, and the pain of losing her still catches me, sticks in my chest. But instead of beating myself up over things I cannot change, I am trying to appreciate everything I have. Thinking of her reminds me to feel, reminds me not to be so selfish, reminds me to keep an open heart.