Staying

When I Cannot Mend What Is Coming

How do I breathe when you are right in front of me, and yet I know that there is an unseen timeline that has now come into view?

My experiences with death have mostly been expected and have come with the aging of the body, but to walk with a friend who seems fine right now and to know that her journey has a timeline that, in the end, cannot be disrupted, hopefully postponed by maybe a decade, feels unearthly—like two parallel timelines, one of which feels like a nightmare that will dissipate as I wake and walk through my day.

There is a glaring spotlight on how much a person’s journey is intertwined with yours, magnified a hundred times over once you realize that it is not a parallel timeline but the path they are currently on.

The last five-plus years have been some of the hardest years of my life, with some of the best outcomes sprinkled in. I know it’s cliché, but it does not make it any less true that sometimes you don’t realize how much people mean to you until their time on this planet has an end date.

Over the last couple of weeks, since learning of my friend’s diagnosis, my mind has been cataloging all the ways in which she and her husband have been my safety net in ways that I did not fully comprehend. I did not realize how much I was subconsciously at peace because I knew that if I needed something or support in any way, they would help or find someone who could.

I recently received a text message that my dad is also not in good health, which grieves my heart. The grief is very different, yet still daunting. My dad is older but still on the younger side for his body to be starting to fail. However, years of manual labor and growing up in an extremely physically and emotionally abusive household leave their mark on his being.

I love my dad, and I know he loves me, yet our relationship is not one that you would consider close, even now. My parents love me and have assured me of that love, but they also believe that because I am a lesbian, I am living in sin. My parents’ political beliefs are very conservative, and we are on very different pages in many areas of belief.

My friend, who is also a co-worker, has been there for me over and over again—before my divorce, when my husband asked for a divorce, when I admitted to myself that I am a lesbian, when I moved into my first home without a roommate or a spouse. My children have spent the last six summers swimming in their pool. When it is a teacher workday or school holiday and I need to bring my kids with me to work, my daughter knows that she can immediately go to my co-worker’s office, pop her headphones on, and snuggle on the couch. My daughter has felt the safety and welcome of sharing a space with a person who has welcomed her with open arms and reassured her that she wants her there, over and over again for the last seven years.

And that is when the heartache hits.

How do you hold the grief that not only you have been loved well, but your children have as well?

I don’t know how to, but I choose to journey with her because I know in the core of my being that this is why we are here—to journey with each other.

Sometimes we need space to process. Sometimes we need moments sitting by ourselves, absorbing the sunshine.

Those alone moments are important. They are how we come home to ourselves, and shared journeys remind us that our existence on this earth is the greatest treasure—not the consumption of things, objects, or accumulation of wealth.

I am learning, or maybe just beginning to understand, that our existence does not disappear when our physical bodies can no longer maintain form. It continues in the ways our lives ripple outward beyond what we can see.

The human collective is an echo of all living things and connections, and sometimes our pain and fear temporarily blind us from feeling that connection. Sometimes we use greed and consumption to numb ourselves from it.

We are connected—even in the ways we benefit from what harms others.

Then I think about my friend and how her ripple effects are so vast. I shared about her journey in a weekly writing circle I am a part of, and friends from all over the country cried with me, touched by her life.

We are connected in ways we cannot fully grasp.