When They’re Gone Too Soon

Insomina’s got the best of me tonight. I haven’t written a very candid blog post in a while (never on this blog, actually), so let’s see how this goes. Things have been pretty rough this past month. It more or less started at the start of the month, when one of my very best friend’s mother passed away unexpectedly. She’d been sick for a while on and off again, but from every conversation I’d had with my friend, everything seemed hopeful, that she would make a full recovery. And then, instead, she woke up one day unable to breathe. Things spun out of control from then on, and from one moment to the next, she was gone. This woman, my friend’s mother, was always incredibly kind to me. Always greeted me warmly. When my daughter died, she allowed me to come into her home and mourn the way I needed to (her own adult daughter had passed away some years ago). She offered gentle words; she knew someday I would smile again. And just two years later, when my son was finally born, she was over the moon for me, for us. It was only after she was gone, too soon, that I found out just how much she spoke of my son, how much love she had for this little boy whom she only got to meet once. I remember in the last few weeks, I wanted to take him by to see her, to bring her some joy, but due to the medications she was on, we weren’t able to make it happen. The morning I received the text from my friend letting me know her mother was gone, I wept, in part because I was sad at the loss of a person who had been so kind to me, and sad at the pain I knew my friend was in, and would be in, for some time, forever, really. Grief never leaves the soul, it simply alters it and learns to coexist within us.

I did everything I could think of to try and be there for my friend. I spread the word to our circle, and got a card for us all to sign, and brought much-needed booze to the wake, and held my friend’s hand and hugged her when she needed it. I am still trying to be there for her as much as I can, because she has been there for me, because I know what pain is like, what grief can do to a person.

Then, just a few days ago, I saw a post on Facebook that stopped me in my tracks. An old friend of mine had passed away; went to sleep and never woke up. He was one of those people who you might not see for a very long time, but when you finally do, it’s like nothing has changed. They’re still the same person and you’re still the same person when you’re with them. He had this…energy, so positive, always warm and smiling. Truth be told, I don’t think anyone has ever said anything as sweet to me as that boy did. We met when we were just young teenagers, and I ran into him time and again, and we hung out time and again, and we started falling out of touch because that’s how life goes sometimes. But I never forgot him.

Just months ago, a mutual friend of ours (mine and this friend who just passed, too soon) also died. Murdered. With that other friend, we almost weren’t surprised, as cruel as it might sound. He’d made some poor choices, fallen into addiction, and made poorer choices as a result of that. I always thought the junk would do him in, but his was a much grizzlier death. The last time my friend and I spoke, it was to talk about the death of our mutual friend. Or ex-friend, really, as neither of us had seen or spoken to him in ages, as we’d both distanced ourselves because hovering around someone so self-destructive after a while cannot be good for anyone.

I’d messaged him one time I was in his neighborhood, hoping we could get together for a bit and catch up like old days. I didn’t want to think that I wouldn’t see him again. But we never did hang out, and now of course, he’s gone.

I went to his wake last night on my own. We didn’t have many mutual friends, and those we did did not make it out to the wake. I felt strange, to be among his family and his long-time friends, friends he’d had since elementary school, friends who were clearly hurting much worse than I. I didn’t want to feel like I was intruding, but I wanted to say good-bye. He lay there in his casket, face made up, looking more peaceful than I’d expected, the remains of a boy I once knew.

He was only 28.

When they’re gone too soon, it never makes sense. But really, it never makes sense when any of us go. I don’t believe in heaven or hell, and I don’t pretend to know what, if anything, happens once we’re gone. In fact, I try not to think about it much, because what is the point, really, if it’s inevitable?

That doesn’t mean I’m not still hopeful that maybe there is something that happens to our souls. That I don’t still wish with every fiber of my being that I will someday see my Mama Adilia again, or my Abuelito Ramon, or my dalmation, or the first friend I lost (also to addiction) so many years ago, so unexpectedly, and also gone too soon. That maybe we’ll all be doing some sort of celestial dance. That maybe it isn’t all completely pointless and futile.

Yesterday, another close friend of mine called me to let me know she’d been in a car accident. “I’m lucky to be alive,” the voice mail said, just hours before I went to say good-bye to my other friend. She was right.

My heart is heavy these days. The weight of death is often unbearable. I still carry with me the death of my daughter, my Maggie, whom I’ve gotten to know far more in her absence than I ever did in those few months she was with me. I carry it every day, on my back and shoulders, inside my rib cage, in the pit of my stomach, the lump in my throat, the ache behind my eye balls, in every single sigh. So when others die, it’s just like she’s dying all over again, and they’re all dying along with her, and suddenly I see the mortality of every single person I’ve ever met looming in the shadows, trap doors set to open at any given time. Every phone call, every text, could be a message filled with devastation.

“I’m sorry. She’s gone,” I hear it, over and over and over again.

What do you do when they’re gone too soon? How do you breathe? How do you get by? How do you keep getting yourself back out of bed every single morning?

I still haven’t figured it out, but it’s what I do. I still breathe. I still make it through every day, with the knowledge of the absence of so many lives gone too soon. It’s what we do. It’s how we survive. And we must.