Goodbye : and thank you

The message came as we wound our way along the pathway, “Teen passed away yesterday afternoon. She was very peaceful, very relaxed.”

We are in the wilderness where the angels live but we are far from you now even though perhaps I feel you in the breath of wind. It takes some time for the shock to fully sink in, and for the tears to flow but when they do I am breaking open so deeply to a river of pain and distress, mostly shame that on the final day we saw each other, I felt only upset you hadn’t been in touch, not realising you were not at all well and I remember how I cried all the way home, thinking I would never see you again. Somewhere deep inside of me I must have known, some how.

You were my true friend. You always cared, never too full of yourself not to ask what was going on in my life, you shared your pain with me over difficult family relationships and I shared mine with you. I remember our many encounters, from the dog park in which we first met and how I misplaced my keys and you helped me that day. The many times we caught up at the Café or Bakery for a coffee, and the many times you invited me for afternoon tea or visited me here.

That is why losing you felt so hard today, it felt like the only people who care about me always die. I don’t want to personalise this though, I don’t want to make it about me, I don’t want to be selfish, but this grief also calls to mind how alone my Dad was as the rest of the message I didn’t share is that your two children and brother were with you right to the end. I cried so deeply with the realisation today that when Dad passed he was alone away from all family, as they performed an emergency tracheoctomy and how when Mum and Judy passed I could not stay to the end I wanted to be away and free, in the place of life, having had my final moments with them alone to say goodbye.

I know I will survive this grief because I can feel it, even though grief is full of fear that it will totally overpower us, maybe that is the nature of grief and facing death, but as I sat there on the dry earth with wattles and water and scrub all around me, Jasper by my side crying to the depths of my soul I also know this death is a reminder to me to never squander a moment and instead of thinking always how things affect me to remember often things are going down with others I just don’t know about. Death is a reminder fully and finally to keep my heart open to live and to express and feel gratitude for the precious moments I had with you and that for a short time in my life, I was able to call you friend.

I love you Christine, Rest in peace, darling. ❤