― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
Grief does not change you, it reveals you...
Well, hell.
So, when Pop died, I felt broken. But, in not too long a time, a year, two maybe, I was able to learn to cherish the memories and push the sadness down so that it wasn't the overriding feeling.
And, it hasn't been such a long time since she died. Just a few months. So, maybe I'm expecting too much. But, I'm sick of being Debbie Downer.
Being in Colorado, with my Colorado Peeps, minus Erica...it was hard. It was meant to be all about celebrating the happy, long marriage of a couple of our friends, and it WAS about that. But, I felt her absence so acutely.
I drank too much at the vow renewal reception and did a whole Granny Gert Ugly Drunk Cry. Thankfully, not anywhere where the bride knew about it. Publicly, I was just the friend who got tipsy and everybody laughs and a few shake their heads. I was trying to celebrate.
But, just now, I was walking Cookie, on a perfectly lovely evening and I haven't touched a drop, and I started doing an uncontrolled ugly cry.
Now, it probably doesn't help that I'm currently reading The Fault in Our Stars. I keep wondering what she was really thinking at the end. She kept up such a cheerful countenance, until the very end when pain and probably the knowledge that she was really losing caused her to lash out at those who were there with her.
I've been having a rather rough go of it and I keep trying to just push the sadness into the background again, but it just doesn't seem to want to go. It's all wrapped up with this anger that I keep having, anger at her, anger at the cancer, anger that I no longer have someone who will text me goofy, random stuff and call me so we can talk on our respective drives home from work. Nearly daily conversations and/or messages for two plus years just stopped. And I feel robbed.
And, I wonder if I was a good enough friend. I keep flashing on a conversation we had the last time I actually got to see her. I'd gone to Denver to go to a speakeasy themed party as her date and one night we were talking about her frustrations with various people and how they related to her and her illness. She didn't want to be "the chick with cancer". This is part of my anger with her, btw, because this need on her part to not be viewed as her disease caused her to omit and even outright lie at the end so that no one would realize how bad it really was.
My medical experience made it difficult for me to deny how sick she obviously was. Still, I tried to go along with her program.
But, that night, as we were talking about how she disliked it that some folks could only look at her and think, "cancer", I said something to the effect of, "Right, I mean, damn, so you have cancer. YOU arent't the cancer. You're just Erica. We're all going to die of something."
We looked at each other and there was a split second of acknowledgement before I said, "Not that I'm saying you're going to die..."
She made a joke and we moved on.
But, I always wonder if she felt betrayed by me in that moment.
And, I wonder, a lot lately, what grief is revealing about me. Am I just a weak, weepy jerk? Because that's what I feel like lately. I feel like I'm dishonoring her by feeling so sad so much of the time. But, I just don't know how to not be sad, sometimes.
I'll keep working on focusing on the joy that is available in life, and there is a lot of it. I'll keep loving the people in my life and being grateful for their love.
And, I'll keep trying to live up to her memory.
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