A couple of weeks ago, within minutes of lying down to go to sleep one night, I broke into big mourning tears.
Wet, heavy tears that lasted nearly an hour, accompanied by silent sobs so I wouldn’t wake Brent. I had to get up twice to read coronavirus news to stop crying (which seems pretty awful, I know).
I knew exactly where these tears were coming from, I’m just not entirely sure why they cropped up when they did.
The Loss
A few months ago (maybe longer, I’m not good at keeping track of timelines even when life is normal), I wished my friend—we’ll call him Neil—a happy birthday on Facebook. I delighted in sending him that little message, a chance to connect with someone dear to my heart.
I didn’t hear back from him, but it didn’t even register that I didn’t hear back from him. Time just went on. I was doing other things on all the days that followed, days that were not his birthday.
Then Kevin, we’ll call him, sent me a message. It said how much he appreciated seeing my birthday messages to Neil every year, but the reason Neil hadn’t written back was because he had died four years ago.
It was a painful shock, and I mourned it briefly at the time. I mourned it big last night.
The History of Our Friendship
I met Neil and Kevin years ago when I was traveling alone through Europe. They were my couchsurfing hosts. Though I was only in the city for a few days, we shared incredible meals and even better wine and conversations, and I left there feeling permanently connected to the two of them, two of the kindest, most open and funny and welcoming and interesting people I’ve ever met.
I never saw them again, though.
We wrote emails for awhile, maybe years even, then kept in touch via Facebook, like you do. Birthdays were a great reminder to connect again.
The pain of losing him is a strange pain, because in reality, I didn’t know him that well. I don’t even really remember what we talked about until five in the morning all those years ago. I just remember that it mattered, on many levels.
Part of the hurt is that he was gone for four years and I didn’t know…and then a sort of nagging memory, like maybe I did know? Had I been told? Had I already processed this sadness then forgotten it?
Could I have forgotten he died?
I don’t know, and I can’t and won’t go digging through old posts and messages to try to find out.
There Isn’t Always Time
Worse is that we parted ways that day in early 2007, sure we’d see each other again. Like you do.
Because of course I’d go back there, or wherever either of them happened to live by the time I got there, or surely they would happen to be someplace, sometime where I also happened to be. Of course we’d see each other again, because when you love people, that’s what happens.
Except it really doesn’t. It’s been 13 years, and he died before we could do it. We ran out of time.
So maybe this is coming up for me now because thousands of people around the world are suddenly, collectively forced to realize they don’t always have the time they thought they had. Or maybe it’s just time to feel this fully.
Making My Way Through a Period of Mourning
It’s giving me yoga lessons, even now as I’m fighting with the tears. First off, why the fight? Secondly, I’m barely breathing. It’s making me be still, take the deep breaths, and pay attention to how the feeling moves through my body.
And it does move. You breathe, and the feeling moves. It’s looking for a way out, and it’ll get there. Maybe not today. But it’ll get there.