My Friend Is Dying

My friend is dying. 

My friend is dying a Horrifying. Painful. Lonely. Frightening death from a silent, relentless, misunderstood disease. I get this more than most because I am one of the silent ones.

Here is what I know.

Growing up, though painful, is relatively easy. We are seekers of simple things. Wonder. Value. Purpose.… Love. Simple searchers blinded by the light of simplicity. A simplicity that will become more complex than we could ever imagine. And in that complexity, we will find difficulty which will lead us inevitably to impossibility and finality.

Introduction. Seduction. Induction. Extinction.

Life is merely a never ending playlist of the exact same songs played for completely different soloists. Sounding the same. Familiar in their tunes. But there is just something about the voices. The Dynamics. The Vibrato. The Timber. They are undeniably unique and are the Impressarios’ notes played On or Off key depending on the circumstances of the Libretto.

Overture. Soubrette. Crescendo. Verismo. Finale

My friend is dying.

My friend is dying, a card-carrying member of a lifetime club that absolutely no one wants to join. Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun. Bang. No-one gets out alive. Sure some of us will survive, we just aren’t alive. Anymore.

Here is what I feel.

These deaths aren’t “just went to the store for deodorant and toilet paper and remembered I needed a sympathy card” kind of deaths. They are a perpetual slo-motion video of your most annoying friend and her wretched kid stacking sticky blocks, on a dirty linoleum floor in a day old spaghetti sauced t-shirt.

Girl. Woman. Wife. Mom. 

These deaths, these are the want to smash the remote control because “I cant find my GOD DAMNED glasses to see the GOD DAMNED buttons” kind of deaths. They are the shave my head, abandon my tribe for an Ashram, and spend years writing crappy novels on finding my bliss in the dark, kind of Deaths.

Glory. Darkness. Blackness. Tempest. Storm.

My Friend is Dying.

My friend is dying and will be forever memorialized with a like in a feed or retweet that never gets retweeted. She. Is. Dying.  There isn’t a vine or an insta-story sad-face broken- heart emoji kind of way of fixing this. She deserves more than that millisecond of attention time. She’s worth that kinda heartbreak because…She’s Dying.

Here is what I am.

The thing about growing up and wising up? It’s a bitch. What you realize, if you really care, is that we are all losing Every.Thing. Every. Single. Day. 

Please…let me stop you before you say look on the bright side. Because if you actually get to get to those words, to actually form them and get them all the way out of you mouth before I am wailing on you with every ounce of rage I've earned...I promise you. You will have wished that I had stopped you.

Protagonist. Antagonist. Villan. Fool.

My friend is dying in an “I have lost my dignity, don’t want you to see me this way, don’t want to burden to anyone but why is this happening to me and what will happen to us” kind of way.

Its not news. 

It was coming.

It always does. 

We are paralyzed in grief. And in grief, lies a whole life of dying. One painful moment at a time. We fight constantly to keep from losing the people we love and with one toss of a tiny pebble in our stream, it becomes a ripple effect of loss that goes on and on for the rest of our lives.

Winter. Spring. Bloom. Frost.

My Friend is Dying.