She Was My Friend

 I haven't written in a while.  Not because I didn't want to, but because I lost track of time due to struggle.  I've been working far too much, struggling with finances and then I found out a friend of mine had passed away.  I hadn't spoken to her in years because we took different paths, but she was a friend.  Her passing has troubled me since I had found out the details.

Like me, she was different.  I think that's how we became friends in the first place.  We never quite fit into the drum corps that we both belonged to.  She would end up not rejoining, while I did it all through high school.  To me, she seemed so strong, so outgoing, and open.  I was not really any of those things growing up.  I was always a bit shy and would never be described as bubbly.  As we got older we were in the same friend group even if we weren't close.  She was there.

She went into the army and had two kids.  I went to college and traveled Europe. The one thing that we had in common was that we struggled.  I have had depression on and off since high school.  These depression spells have made a lot of my memories fuzzy.  There were times when she couldn't get out of bed.  I had no idea that any of this was going on and yet, I was caught up in my own whirlwind of darkness to notice much else.  I apologize to my friends and family for that.

My friend took her own life according to the coroner, but there were some oddities around it, which I will not go into.  Part of me is in shock because I always thought she was so tough and strong.  Yet the damaged part of me knows the lies that depression can tell.  It's easy to believe those lies especially with the odd circumstances.  The fact that she is no longer here, physically hurts me in a way that I cannot describe and for reasons I don't fully understand.

My high school friend group had a memorial for her this past weekend.  It was sad and it was beautiful.  We had all the pictures from high school up.  She was so loved, by so many.  We had some crazy stories and it was good to see my old friends, yet it was sad that we had to get back together under those circumstances.  We all went on with our lives that I feel almost like an outsider.  The most beautiful thing was that her sisters brought a mini urn encased in a pewter rose so that our friend could be with us as we remembered her.

Even now, I'm struggling with myself and the fact that I know that darkness and despair.  I sometimes feel like an outsider even among my friends.  I feel alone.  I wish I was able to see my friends more, but with a retail schedule, a boyfriend, and friends with kids etc, it gets a bit difficult to spend time with the people I care about.

As for my friend being gone, my new rabbi shared a story about loss during one of her sermons.  It wasn't a story of hers, but it was of a man who was recounting his first encounter with death (a pet canary) and the information operator he would speak to as a child.  The operator told the child, after he asked why did his pet have to die, that there were other worlds to sing in.  Now that my friend is gone, I take comfort that she is singing in another world.  There are always other worlds to sing in.