I was rather blessed as a child. I don't recall losing anyone close to me. I don't recall any funerals or memorials. I really didn't know how to deal with death as a child, because I never had to. Even my great grandmother
When I was 18, someone in our group passed away due to complications after a car accident. His girlfriend and I grew up in the same neighborhood. Scott and I were acquaintances, if that. I attended his funeral, but not because we were close. I ended up chauffeuring his best friend, who was barely capable of doing anything. I could drive, I wasn't terribly emotional and so I spent the day of the funeral driving his best friend and other people to and from the memorial and other life celebrations. I stayed sober and kept people safe.
I lost my grandmother when I was 19, and my other grandmother when I was 23. In fact, I lost so many members of my family in my 20s that I had a "funeral dress". Funerals just became a part of life, but one I didn't know how to deal with. I cried, I grieved and I went through all the stages, but mourning wasn't something I really knew how to do.
In 2003, a friend from my high school/college group passed away. It was sudden, he passed away from an aggressive form of cancer. I remember that one day I was told he was in the hospital, but it wasn't serious. A couple of weeks later, I heard that he had died. I remember going to the funeral. I hadn't seen B in years. We weren't in touch. Going to the funeral made me realize how much I missed having him in my life, when it was too late to matter.
There is something else I remember. I was in the middle of a break up. The person in question had sent me a break up e-mail, but between taking time off from work and going to the funeral, I hadn't seen it. I remember them telling me later that they had checked Livejournal and my other online haunts to get a read on my reaction. The person was completely stunned by my silence. They were waiting for an argument, a refusal to accept the break up, something.
I remember reading the e-mail the day after the funeral and I laughed. After watching my friends grieve, after seeing a life cut short, a life that was so celebrated, so beloved and was leaving such a hole, my life seemed stupid. The break up seemed obvious. I was in a bad place in my life, so I let that relationship go. I was in a job I hated, so I quit and went back to school.
There were many factors that changed my life in 2003 and 2004. However, I am quite sure that it was realizing that I would never be able to talk to Brandon that started things for me. I'd never hear him say "Is that any good?" while poking at my food again. I'd never hear his rather blunt brand of advice when I asked him about life stuff. It was those realizations, as much as anything else that started me on the path towards change. It wasn't a desire to make Brandon proud of me, but that I wanted my life to be at least somewhat meaningful before I left this world. His friends still feel his loss. I can only hope I am remembered as fondly.
A couple of years ago, another member of the friend's group passed away. Brandon and David had been friends the entire time I knew them. David and I weren't terribly close. He dated my roommate when we were 18, I had kept in touch with him off and on. We were friends on Facebook and that sort of thing. I thought very well of him, but our lives hadn't intersected much in the past few years. However his death hit me harder than Brandon's because I saw the impact on his family and friends. If Brandon is remembered fondly, David is remembered as the person that was always there for 3am weirdness or for the ideas that just needed a sounding board.
I felt the impact of David's loss in my own life and began realizing that I missed the connections to these people with whom I had grown up. That this friend's group was a family, people who had seen me at my worse, my best and in between. In a world where I felt continuously judged and found wanting, these friends didn't care, if anything they probably just shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, that's just how Rachel has always been."
I have no siblings. My grandparents are gone. My father passed in 2011. I am beginning to understand that the closest I have to family are these people that I walked away from 20 years ago. People whom I walked away from, but never walked away from me.
Last week, Doug passed away. I am tired of stating the obvious. We weren't close. We were friends, but many years ago. I never met his wife. I didn't know him as an adult. I had always meant...
Yeah
I know that death and grieving often becomes a time of self-reflection. That's where I am at now. I am thinking. I have been getting better about connecting with my friends from high school and college. I have been trying to see their acceptance as the gift that it has always been. I don't know how many more times I need death to remind me that time is fleeting and that the people that are in my life today may not be there tomorrow. I am trying to get better about seeing the friends I have currently. I don't want to think of another friend only when it is too late to tell them what they mean to me.
I do not know how to mourn Doug, David, or Brandon. I suppose when I listen to Queen, Oingo Boingo, or Fiddler on the Roof I am grieving them. I guess when I remember the jokes we shared (Never, ever split a bottle of Southern Comfort with Doug if you value your liver, your sobriety, or your self-respect.) I can never think about Rocky Horror without thinking of Brandon and Dave and their Hillbillies. I feel like there is something more I should be doing. I just don't know what.
I do understand that loss is a part of growing older. I know that I need to learn the lessons, address the regrets and most importantly remind myself that the people in my life may not be there tomorrow.
There is a song that we sing in many of my social venues, so it is today's song. I am using the version as done by the band that played at my wedding. I like it because it isn't done as a dirge, but as the sort of thing I would want to sing with my friends, especially hearing the lovely voices of Brandon, David, and Doug joining in.
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