TheBanyanTree: Crying on a Friday Night

[Monique Colver]

Also at:
http://open.salon.com/blog/moniquec/2009/10/19/crying_on_friday_night#post_comments
<http://open.salon.com/blog/moniquec/2009/10/19/crying_on_friday_night#post_comments>
Another road trip, this one only to Seattle, three hours north, then, at the
end of the day, three hours south to go home. No big deal in the overall
scheme of things, and it had been a good trip, other than the pain in my
legs, but that's normal, and it's no big deal.

Thinking, along the drive, because I hadn't thought to recharge my mp3
player so I could listen to a book. And I started to think, as I often do on
long drives, of how I wish Stew were still here. We went through so much
pain together, and when things are going well I want to tell him, and share
it with him, but he's no longer here, and I can't. And I thought about how
people are here, and then gone, and while I accept it, I don't have to like
it. I like to think he still knows, but it's not quite the same, is it? It's
not like sharing with him.

And unexpectedly, I started to cry. Just a bit at first. No big deal. But my
tears burned my eyes like acid, as they often do, and I couldn't see, and I
tried to keep one eye open. The highway was silent and dark, mostly, except
for me, but keeping one eye open to see through the burning tears wasn't
working, and both my eyes burned and I couldn't see. I pulled over to the
shoulder, turned on my emergency flashers, put the car in park and turned it
off, and I cried, great heaving sobs of sorrow and frustration.

I didn't think I'd ever stop.

Cars flew by, everyone on their way somewhere, and all I could do was sit in
my car at the side of the road and cry as if there would be no tomorrow.

I cried for those I've lost, and for those I will lose, and I cried for me.
I'm self-centered that way. I cried because it will never end, the losing of
people.

Some people come in and out of our lives and it's okay because they're in
our lives for a reason, and it's okay when they go, whether they move away
or we move away or we just stop keeping in touch, going our separate ways.

But some people come into our lives and are supposed to be there forever,
always close enough to talk to, always a presence, always just there. And
then they're not, and we wonder what to do without them. How can we just go
on without them?

We do, of course, and the pain becomes easier to bear as time goes on, and
we can even push it out of our way a bit, if it helps, but that doesn't mean
it's gone. It doesn't mean we're all better.

I sat at the side of the road and cried, and I thought I could have sat
there and cried even longer, I could have cried until morning, but I didn't.
It's not as if I could get it all out and be done with it. No matter how
much I cry on one day, it will still turn up from time to time, and I'll do
it again. I can't cry it all out of me.  So I remembered that my charming
husband was waiting for me at home, and when I could see again I started the
car, pulled back onto the highway, and headed home, my one safe place.

Stew was a great friend, a part of me, and he was supposed to be around
forever. My charming husband understands that, he misses him too, misses how
funny he was, and how the two of them would talk through me. "Tell Stew . .
." he'd say, and I would. "Tell Andrew . . . " Stew would say, and I would.
He was supposed to be part of our family for the rest of our lives. When he
worried about what might happen to him if he couldn't look after himself, if
the mental illness became bad again, I told him he'd always have a place
with us, and it was true.

He had so much life in him, and he still had so much yet to do, but none of
that mattered, at the end.

And now my mother, she's preparing to leave too. She's still on chemo,
hoping for relief and more time, but we don't know how long it will last. No
one knows. We go one day at a time, like we did with Stew, and we hope for
the best, and we make the most of the time we have. We laugh and we talk,
and we hope to put that day off just a bit longer.

I've struggled with the core of a book I want to write, but it's about
friendship. It's what we're capable of, for our friends, and what we'll do
for them, and they for us. It's about what it means to have friends who are
part of us, and what happens when they slip away and a part of us goes with
them.
-- 
Monique Colver