One of my best friends died Saturday night.
I suppose calling her my best friend is a true statement. She was by far a better friend to me than I was to her. We were opposites.
She was an extrovert who loved company and to be surrounded by people. I am an introvert who is perfectly happy alone in my cave.
She was agnostic. I am very religious. We learned quickly that one cannot argue faith with logic. But we also learned that it was pretty damned awesome to have differing points of view --and differing core values and beliefs -- yet still be able to be friends and confidants.
She said what she thought. Period. I try to be as diplomatic as I can because I hate confrontation and I especially hate hurting people's feelings. She couldn't understand why people didn't see the logic in what she was saying, regardless of how she said it. Quite often she couldn't understand why others were offended.
Saying that, it's understandable when I say that she was that one friend who got on my very last nerve, but I loved her anyway. Even when she hurt my feelings. And she loved me anyway. Even when my distance hurt her feelings.
She was fun. She was imaginative. She loved books. She loved to giggle and was extremely ticklish. She hated the sun. She loved, loved, loved animals and nature. She'd offer the last twenty dollars in her bank account to any of her friends if she thought they needed it. She loved getting presents for people and took a lot of time picking out the right thing, wanting it to be something they'd love.
She loved movies. She loved magic and worlds with different rules than ours. She immersed herself in World of Warcraft because she loved the mounts and the pets and the story lines and the achievements and the people she met online.
26 years of friendship -- with its ups and downs almost like a marriage. And I'm angry. I'm angry at myself for not getting over some of the hurts enough to spend more time with her at the end. I'm angry that the cancer changed her personality, made her hard to be around, made her not-Peggy.
I'm angry that I hurt so much, even though the cancer was eating her up from the insides out. At the end, she was starving to death because the tumors had grown into her intestines so much they were pinched completely off. She couldn't digest food because it couldn't get in there.
Her death was a release from all of the discomforts and pain and frustrations she's had over the last five years. So many things in her body had stopped functioning properly.
I'm angry that my last hours with her, giving her a last farewell foot-zone and putting her to sleep, were not enough. That I couldn't do much more than offer what temporary comfort I could. I couldn't fix anything.
I could hug her. I could hug her husband. I could let her vent at me the same way she let me vent to her. Anything and everything was talked about in venting sessions and there was no lasting judgement.
I know that if she's existing on another plane she's released from her non-functioning body. (She firmly insisted death was death; there was nothing else but decomposition into her essential atomic bits - so she may very well refuse to exist in the afterlife out of pure stubbornness.) But if she's there, there's no more diabetes. No more super bad back pain from scoliosis. No more chronic fatigue. No more feeling the tumors growing inside of her. No more forgetting what she was saying halfway through her sentences.
I know all this, I believe all this, and yet I'm here, angry, pissed off, wanting to flip off the world and stare at the wall and listen to sad, sad music because nothing feels right.
There will be no Peggy logging into the game late at night wondering if anyone wants to do dailies. No texts telling me about the coolest book she'd just read. Or the yummy food Aaron made for dinner. Or the hummingbirds that came to visit the flowers she planted. Or the cute animals at the zoo she'd seen.
*sigh*
I thought typing my thoughts out would help me sleep. But it's not working.
Instead I'm thinking of our goodbye. Which wasn't said. We just said, "I love you" as I left her hospital room. But before I left, she looked at me with her big green eyes and asked if I was happy. She wanted so badly for me to be happy.
And that, at least, I could do. I could look her in the eye and assure her that I am happy. I love my life. It's not easy. Divorce sucks and it's hard, but my life is so much better now than it has been for... well, it feels like forever. Deep down the core of me is at peace. I feel good. I'm free, my wings can spread and fly, and I'm suddenly good enough. I'm still the same old me that I've always been, but that same old me is good enough and lovable and an okay person. Wow, that's amazing.
So it wasn't hard to tell her that I'm happy. I feel like that would and did (and does) make her happy for me.
It doesn't change the fact that I'm upset that she's gone. That I'm upset that cancer took her away long before she died. But now she's actually dead. Dead.
I have a file of photos I took years ago during college called "Dead Peggy." She was a model I used for one of my art projects. Now that just seems so wrong.
Death sucks. I don't care if it's a natural part of life. It sucks.
Aaron's right; it's Sucktember. I'm glad it's over.
I miss my grandma. I miss my Peggy.
