Who
would have thought forever would be severed by…
The
sharp knife of a short life, oh well
I’ve
had just enough time…
If I Die Young by The Band Perry
I was newly wed and newly graduated from college when I got
the call. My best friend had suffered a brain aneurysm. She was alive, barely,
and the doctors were trying to reduce the swelling on her skull.
She was in a hospital three hours away and we hurriedly made
plans to get there. The details of that first week have blurred. The swelling
went down, but the left side of her body was partially paralyzed. There was no
damage to her cognitive functions, but while repairing the aneurysm, the
doctors discovered brain cancer.
Fast-forward one year.
Angie was home. She was re-learning how to walk with a leg and an arm that
wouldn’t co-operate. She affectionately named her left arm, Edith, and her left
leg, Linus. That way she could flip you off and claim she had nothing to do
with it. It also gave her a way to yell at her body when it wouldn’t do what
she wanted.
That was typical of Angie. She found ways to cope with the
crap of life. Her family was more dysfunctional than normal so I guess she
learned early. For example, among other things, her mom was a hoarder. When she
came home from college for visits, she would load up trash bags under the guise
that her sorority could use a few things. Then she would find the nearest
dumpster and unload. It gave her some sense of control in a hopeless situation.
Skip ahead another
year. The doctors said the cancer was terminal – an even more hopeless
situation. What did Angie do? She endured chemo and radiation and signed up for
experimental treatments. And oh yeah, she also enrolled in Baldwin Wallace’s graduate
program for International Business.
She had no idea how much time she had left. (Reminder: none
of us do.) So she studied French. She traveled to China (by herself!) and
Greece. She kept learning and questioning and meeting people and impacting the
world. She spent more time on the things that brought her joy and less time on
the things that didn’t.
Jump ahead a few more
years. I find out I’m pregnant! The first thing I want to do is call Angie.
Then I remember that I can’t. It’s only been a month since she’s been gone and
the comfort of habit overshadows reality. If we have a girl, we toy with the
idea of naming her, “Angela.” She did not like her name so she would’ve hated
that - it’s a good thing we have a boy.
Angie inspired and influenced everyone she met. And not
because she had a bubbly, Miss Sunshine disposition. She was authentic AND kind
which is a special combination. It’s easy to be either, but it’s hard to be
both. People were drawn to her honest observations about life and, mostly,
about themselves. She could “read people,” as she put it.
When she got sick, I quit my first full-time job. I decided
life was too short to be miserable. And I had no excuses. Even though she had
to slow down at times, she never stopped striving for the life she wanted. How many of us are not even sick and yet we’ve
already stopped living?
Then my son was born ten months after she was gone. Like a
lot of people, I slipped into the ocean of being a new parent. What I wanted didn’t
matter anymore (of course, I found out later that it did). I stopped reading books, meeting friends for
lunch, and polishing my resume. I sank
even deeper after my second son was born.
Without planning to, I put my personal & professional
growth on hold. I stopped living an intentional life. She would have been so
mad at me! Most importantly, she would have sat me down and pointed out that I
could be a great mom while still developing my unique skills and talents. In
fact, she would have told me that I could be a better mom by following my passions.
But without her truth, I lost my way. I settled. I stopped
believing in myself, stopped seeing myself through her eyes. I am not blaming
her for decisions that were absolutely mine. I just think it underlines the
importance of friendship in keeping us afloat, not exclusively, but especially for women.
It took time for me to reach out again, to expose my
vulnerabilities and accept my need for others. And I am blessed with some wonderful
friends, both old and new, who speak their truth into my life. I still miss
Angie terribly - grief is such a stubborn emotion. We all have loss and hurt that
hang around and try to distract us from the present. But we can also know beauty
and joy and endless opportunity if we open ourselves up to it.
So I acknowledge the pains in life – they develop us in so
many ways. And then I savor the smell of my boys’ hair after they’ve played
outside. I message a friend to tell her that I love her. I push myself to run
farther as I train for my first 5K. I let a dark chocolate truffle linger on my
tongue before I finish it. And then I update my resume.
