Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

Life’s Lemons

It’s been a hell of a year, so far and it’s just started. My friend, Mark fell to his death in December. We buried him as the year turned over. My age, forty-four, smart, funny, talented. Beyond talented. A photographer, friend who could tell the world a story in one click. A story I would take pages to write.

That’s bad. It’s not all.

My dear friend, Sue, is in hospice. She’s what the hospice people call, “actively dying.” Pardon me, but I’ve yet to figure out the difference between sort of dying and really working at it. When I’m, “actively running,” I’m really out there, but Sue does not give anything up without a fight. Not her daughter when the doctors said she would not live after a head trauma, not her life. She was given the news over a year ago that she was not going to make it out of her breast cancer alive. She thumbed her nose and lived more in this last year, than I’ve lived in all of mine. Go Sue. She is not trying to die here. It’s not a project she’s working on, like painting her kitchen. Which she did a few months ago, when she was on more morphine than is probably legal. She’s something else.

So, what has all this death taught me? I have no freaking idea. How’s that for a crap answer?

I want to stand on some sort of pedestal and shout to the world about how the loss and soon to be loss, of some of the people who have had the greatest influence on my life had made me this amazing person, but anyone who knows me would laugh like a loon. I’m not someone who takes subtle hints from the powers that be. They need to thump me over the head with a shovel, before I get any divine messages. Even then, they come in fuzzy. Probably from the head injury associated with the thumping.

I have learned a few things, or at least I think I have. Humans do not deal well with absolutes. We’re always looking for the wiggle room, the flaw in the logic, our special, “way out.” So I’m not going to say that this terrible time in my life has changed me, because change seems to imply permanence. I’m about as permanent as your average earthquake. Still, there are some things that I seem to have enough insight on to share with others.

Don’t stay pissed. Mark had the unmitigated gall to die while we were fighting. Yep, I had to sit there at his funeral knowing the last words we shared, were not so nice. Don’t get me wrong, I’m never cruel, and neither was he, but what a maroon I was. I should have broken down and called him and now I can’t. I don’t have his number where he is and no one seems to be calling me with messages from the great beyond, so I’m going to have to either forgive myself for that fight, or learn to be miserable about it and live with regret. I don’t like regret, but self forgiveness is hard. I do wish he’d find a way to talk to me, but since I am not Jonathon Edwards, I may be out of luck.

Life’s short and it’s unforgiving. Live hard. Sue is fifty one. Just a few years older than I am. I already told you that she lived her life more in the past year than ever before. I think she took three cruises, went to Italy, and did a weekend in Vegas with me and the gals. She also threw a few awe inspiring parties and, until a few days ago when she became too tired to do it, was hosting gatherings in her room in hospice. All the while sending a slew of cards to people she loves and pestering me, among others, to get our heads on straight and deal with some serious issues. Dang! That’s a life well lived and that’s only the last year.

She also has the incredible ability to make the people she cares about feel special. She really listens to people. I listen, but there’s always other things going on in my brain. I need to slow down in some areas and move it along in others. Sue reminds me to live my damn life, now! Not when I lose a few more pounds, or when I get another book written, but today. Celebrate life TODAY! There are no other guarantees.

So now I am planning another book, training for a marathon, and telling people I love that I love them more often. I’m also letting petty crap blow over more, but I will never be perfect at that. Will it stick? I have no clue. I think a lot of life is tossing poo at a wall and seeing what sticks and grows flowers. Right now I’m flinging as fast as I can, and laughing at the splats. Which is a good start at living a better life. I’ll take it.