Death is for the Living

This past weekend I lost a dear and long-time friend.  She fought a year-long battle with cancer, and despite her upbeat attitude and stubborn, spirited desire to live, she’s gone from this life.  Yes, given the nature of her diagnosis, I was quietly preparing myself for this possibility.  And even knowing her time was more limited than most in this world, the call caught me completely off guard.  I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.  I didn’t get a chance to tell her I loved her, or one last silly story about a date I went on…

She lived with my family for a time.  So she’s been very much like a sister to me — the big sister I never had that I resented for trying to protect me and loved just as much as any blood relative.  It sounds obvious, and painfully true to say that it’s just strange to think she won’t answer her phone if I call her, that we won’t play words with friends again anytime soon.

As I write this post, I am aware I am actively going through the grieving process.  My mind is aware that there are stages I’ll pass through.  In fact, I’ve been looking for them: 1) denial & isolation, 2) anger, 3) bargaining, 4) depression, and 5) acceptance.  As thoughts and emotions related to Angie come up, I find myself categorizing them into these buckets.  It hasn’t exactly been a linear process.  My musical preferences over the last 24-48 hours are telling enough; I’ve been ping-ponging  between Eminem (anger), Mumford & Sons (denial / bargaining) and slower chick R&B (depression).  Overall, there is a sense of hard-nosed acceptance, a knowing that there’s no changing that she has passed.

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What has become clear to me in all of this isn’t the certainty of death – it’s a part of life.  Rather, what keeps coming to mind is this thought; on this plane of existence, death is for the living.  The processing, the grieving, the changing perspectives on love, friendship, what’s actually important, are all things we humans seem to only fully conceptualize through the absence.  Death is a teacher.  A reminder that “the certain prospect of death could sweeten every life with a precious and fragrant drop of levity…” — Friedrich Nietzsche.

We continue to live.  The truth of all of this is very simple; in the face of death, we decide what life means to us.