Goodbye, Emily
When I was growing up, it never occurred to me that specific dates would someday have major significance later in my life. They were just normal days just like the one before it and the one after it. Another Monday, another Tuesday. Nothing special.
As an adult, though, dates take on an entirely new meaning. Birthdays are still important, but then there are wedding anniversaries for friends and pet adoption days and the date that we will close on our house. Dates that didn’t mean anything once hold such importance now. You never imagine that a random date on a calendar will also be the date that you lose someone special to you. May 8 is the day my Grandma died. July 31 was her birthday. Those days are ingrained my memory now. Now I will add July 28 to that list. It is the day that my best friend died.
It’s amazing how one minute, your life is normal. The kids are finally tucked into bed. Dinner is over and the dog has been fed. PJs are on, and you are ready to watch something mindless on Netflix. It was a good day. Then, you realize that you have a message request on Facebook from a childhood acquaintance – your friend’s cousin – asking you to call her. And for a moment, you stop breathing, because in that split second of confusion, you know that something is not right. Why is this person sending a message to you when you haven’t spoken in so long?
At first, I thought I was being conned. I considered so many things in that brief flash of time. Subconsciously, I probably thought that if this wasn’t who I thought it was, everything would really be fine. So I texted my friend. “Is everything okay?” Her family was coming home from the beach that morning. I knew she would text me right back as she always did. I waited a few minutes and there was no answer. Even now, the message just shows as delivered. That’s when I knew. I called her cousin, and my world shattered.
The only way that I can describe what happened after I heard was an absolute feeling of being completely distraught. It took a few minutes for the shock to wear off, but when it did, this thing happened where I lost all control of my emotions. I cried so hard that my entire body was shaking. I was afraid that I was going to wake my girls, so I went outside and cried there. It was dark. A storm was coming in and lightning flashed in the sky. Usually I would have headed in to avoid it, but that night, I simply sat there. I didn’t care about the lightning. I only cared that everything in the entire world was suddenly wrong. I called my mom, but I was crying so hard that she couldn’t even understand what I was telling her. She didn’t even know until the next morning when she got online. I feel bad that she found out that way. At least I had warning before people began to post about it.
I feel like I have been grieving all wrong ever since. I had moments where I cried so hard in the shower or in the car that I felt like I would never stop. And then I had moments where I was going along as though nothing had happened. I was singing along to music or laughing at a podcast when I would suddenly remember that I should not be behaving this way. I used work as a distraction; if I stayed busy, it didn’t happen. If I couldn’t think about it, it couldn’t upset me. But that didn’t work for long. It hit me at the most odd times. I would be making dinner for the girls, and it would take me twice as long because I would just be staring out the window, wondering how everything was suddenly upside down. Livvy went to school and told her teachers that her mommy was “crying a lot.” I felt so guilty because I don’t want my girls to know how sad I am.
The service was today. None of it seemed real. When will it seem real? It has been one week and one day. Will it take two weeks? Three? Will it set in on her birthday next year when I don’t send her a card? She was the friend to whom I always sent the girls’ school pictures. The most recent photos are still sitting in an envelope with her name on it because I kept thinking I would have time later. We were friends for over 30 years. That length of time creates an entirely different bond than any other friendship. One where you can text in the middle of the night and there are no questions asked. One where you may not see each other for a year or so, but it doesn’t matter because you can pick right up where you left off when you get together. Even now, I think of things that I want to text her, and I can’t. I don’t have anyone to tell things to. I don’t want to start over. I don’t want another best friend.
I don’t know what happens now. Do I go back to normal? Do I pretend that everything is okay until one day when it hits me out of the blue? When will I be excited about things again? We are a week and some odd days away from closing on our house, and I honestly don’t think I could care any less about it right now. She was the first friend that I told when we went under contract. Who will I tell things to now?
On Sunday of this past weekend, I spent most of the day outside painting the twins’ wooden kitchen. It was a good way to stay busy and prevent myself from wandering aimlessly around my house. It was a pretty windy day due to a hurricane rolling up the East coast, perfect for getting paint to dry quickly. While I was tucked under the carport, I watched as a butterfly dashed around. I only remember that it had black and flashes of bright blue on its wings. It landed on a leaf, and I watched it cling on for dear life while the wind tried to whip it around. Then it would fly around a little more before landing again. I don’t know how much I believe that our loved ones show back up to see us in other forms after they pass on. In a way, I think it’s a little cheesy, but who am I to say if it happens or not? I stopped what I was doing and watched the butterfly for a couple of minutes, happy to have paused long enough to see it. I don’t know that I would have appreciated it as much before. It was beautiful, regardless of whether I was meant to see it or if I just happened to be there at the right time. I guess that I will have to look for these things now; I’ll take my signs where I can find them in an effort to move forward and not be sad all the time, even though I really am sad. I have to be okay with that.
