I lost one of my closest friends the other week.
She was in her mid 50s and died of stage 4 cancer. Covid did have something to do with her early death. There were many people who lost their medical care or weren't able to get scans in time. She lived in a very heavily locked down area where medical care was shut down. She fought for her life and spent months in rehab and chemo and sadly succumbed to her illness.
She was a great person, she had a brilliant mind, lots of dreams, and died so young. I will miss her. We came together meeting each other on a ACON forum around 8 years ago. She had gone no contact with her own [adoptive] NM and we were a support for one another. She was there for me in those especially very hard early no contact years. She was there for me as other friendships ended as my eyes opened. Her mind was one of the greatest I've encountered. She loved history and we talked about it often, and shared books between each other and talked about them. She was also deaf/very hard of hearing like me and we shared two private boards on Facebook where we texted each other and posted articles to talk about, so in a strange way, I have a "recording" of our friendship going back years. We "talked" at least every few days and spent hours in conversation. Losing her has been very hard.
It's hard to explain how it feels to lose another close friend. I've lost so many. So many people I know have died so young too. I've been crying a lot. This world is growing to be a tougher place. It makes me sad her last years was spent in the isolation of Covid lock downs. She was like many ACONs, she had very distant ties in her case, one other [adoptive] sister states away who had gone no contact and an [adoptive] uncle who was supportive as well. She was not married and had no children. I often worried about how alone she seemed to be.
The worse worry was her battling cancer on her own. She did find help and I told her about PACE and she found a local PACE program to help her. One of my worse regrets is that I did not go to visit her. Maybe these are just excuses but I was afraid to travel during Covid. My husband was worried about me physically because even 100 mile trips are hard on me being driven by someone else in a car, how was I to go over a thousand? We had discussed meeting each other for some time but sadly it didn't happen. Both of us lacked the money and even when there was stimuluses from the government, medical bills vaporized that money on both our ends. Today though, I regret not going to visit her. Time is always short and it seems like everyone is always so far away.
She had gotten her masters and was seeking to get a doctorate, despite her very hard background, including time in homelessness. Life was not easy to her. She faced a lot of barriers in the world, including once even losing a job over a credit check, a job that would have made her financially stable. She stood up for herself and fought for justice there too, but it was not to be. She had dreams she wanted to fulfill, and I feel very sad she was not able to get the doctorate or professorship she dreamed of. She was so driven but fighting so much. How does one describe a loss of a friend? They are irreplaceable.
She wrote some articles for this blog including these:
Guest Blogger: Toxic Christianity has Its Roots in Slavery, Capitalism, and Middle-Class White Supremacy
Guest Blogger: Parasitic Narcissists Who Get Their Needs Met At Other People's Expense
Guest Blogger: "God's Will or Plans for Our Lives?"
I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend. Mid-50s is awfully young. My condolences!
ReplyDeleteThank you Treaders
DeleteWhat a beautiful tribute. Of course, I whole-heartedly agree with all of your words, having watched you guys interact over the years. I find myself sharing many of the same emotions as yours, especially when I think of the credit check BS -- talk about yanking a rug out from under somebody! I can only imagine how that must have made her feel. It's the symptom of a society caught in some twisted zero-sum game -- what I call the "stability lottery," with a fortunate few getting everything, and the rest, well, the equivalent of a sandwich without meat.
ReplyDeleteI see and hear what you're going through, having gone through this myself -- some people can't seem to catch a break. Just know that your friend will always be part of you, though she's no longer here, so the connections that you made can never be forgotten. Glad to see the other links here: you're doing whatever you can to keep your friend's memory alive, which is the most important thing.
These situations always loom large in my mind, especially when we're being told -- as the talking heads are telling us now -- that we have to "bow to the political realities" of what we can't have, things that people want, that would have benefited your friend (like an educational system that doesn't leave its consumers, oops, students, mired in debt). We know better, and so did she. Know that I'm thinking of you, too, as you try and work through all the emotions of your loss. --Mr. Peep<
Trust me, I feel bad that we couldn't make your dream come true to visit. I just wasn't sure how it would square with your physical limitations -- I remember how it was taking you to ******, and you struggled. Not to mention that Boston (and Cambridge, for that matter) is a pretty expensive place.
I remember when I was there, to visit a friend of mine, and I had to stay at the Cambridge Y for one of the nights, because he couldn't put me up then, for some reason -- and it was 100 bucks! Pretty expensive for 1993, I'd hate to think what they're charging now. Stuff like this is pretty hard to deal with, even when you get stimulus money, like we did. But I wish we could have found some way around the dilemma.
Anyway, there's my two cents, see if you can post them. Otherwise, a really beautiful piece of writing.
Love,
Mr. Peep
I am so sorry about your loss, Peep.
ReplyDelete-Jess
Thank you Jess
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