Grief Guilt: Missing the Old You, and Most Likely the Point

    I was sitting in a french fry place in Amsterdam, eating 3600 calories worth of fast food covered up as a cultural delicacy when my phone buzzed. It was my cousin, my second cousin as my girlfriend corrected, but someone close to me none the less. She was reaching out to me to call her immediately from tens of thousands of miles away, and my face flushed, and my head tightened because something was clearly wrong. I couldn't make a call on my phone plan from Europe, and I figured she was letting me know someone was in the hospital. That's what always happens. Someone tries to reach out for communication, and you already know the answer by that effort alone. My first thought was my dad, hes heavier (sorry Dad, but almonds don't negate the nutritional facts of a snickers), and he has a bad heart, and temperamental diabetes. I had decided that she was reaching out to tell me that while I was running around Europe he had a heart-attack. My intuition was only half wrong. Diabetes was indeed the culprit, but not my Dad's.
   
      Part of me feels I haven't earned the right to write this article. That my drift from the deceased has to null and void the memories we shared, and the bond that eventually grew apart. We all have a friend we met as a child who is the sidekick in every childhood memory we had, but as time goes on you become your own people and the bond you shared of being a child is no longer enough to transition you into adulthood. I had one of those. We met on the first day of Daisy scouts- for those unaware that is the very first level of the Girl Scouts of America. We were five years old, we danced together for 15 years, we played tee-ball together, we went to bible school together (and secretly whispered about how we didn't belong there), and vacationed in matching outfits. I have seen on the internet so many times that one day you go outside to play with your friends for the last time, and nobody knows its happening. I guess that is what happened, and it took me about 12 years to realize.  I feel like I have lost the right to feel altered by her passing because of the people who did remain in her life, or knew who she is and not who she was. My place in her life shifted as we went to different schools, and found a love for different things, and a chapter closed. As I looked down at my phone and read the message that sealed her fate I saw the first 15 years of my life flash, and wondered if the last 10 had been enough for her to count as a life fully lived. Had she seen the things she wanted to see, and taken any of the chances that she talked about as a child?
   
     This is where my hesitance began. It became self reflective and self indulgent to feel sad, and wallow over someone I hadn't considered part of my present life in years. I was grieving someone who had expired in my life years before her death instead of feeling sympathy and compassion for the people who lived and breathed her every single day. Those were the people who had been altered. I had lost someone that didn't really even exist anymore, and they lost a part of their present. My first concern should have been them, and her life that had been cut short. It wasn't. It was what I had lost. The guilt I felt about feeling entitled to grief made me close off my emotions about the whole situation. I clung to generic statements like "Her poor parents", and "I cant imagine having to bury a child" which were true, and valid, but not attached any personal catharsis.  My own past with her became secondary because I felt I shouldn't be allowed to grieve someone I no longer had a relationship with. I let my meek attempt at emotional perseverance cloud the gravity and validity of being allowed to feel whatever I was feeling no matter how much time had passed.

   The rest of the week came and went as I returned home from my trip, but the reality of her passing, and her impending funeral remained lingering in the back of my mind. My parents have always been separated, but my relationship with my childhood friend was so close that both sides were stunned by the loss, and made arrangements to attend a viewing. I went with my grandmother who was gutted over the loss of a young life, regardless of her current proximity to our family. Her thoughts of "Her poor parents", and "A young life cut short" were her genuine strife. To be honest I believe after losing my grandfather two and a  half years ago seeing a family lose a child, and young person lose so much time was sobering for her after being absorbed by her own personal grief for such a long time. As we entered the funeral home I passed her dad. He looked, to be as frank as possible, like a man burying his 25 year old daughter today. He didn't seem to recognize me, and since I was trying to not have a personal investment I didn't try to force his memory. I went into the funeral home looking to pay my respects to her mom and sister. As I entered the room where her and I had seen too much of each other over the years from friends and relatively passing-usually untimely I felt a closeness to her and this place I hadn't in years. Her mom recognized me instantly. As she hugged me the tears I had resisted for days flooded me, and almost felt welcomed by her acknowledging I was supposed to be there. I could barely make out how sorry I was for her loss. Her sister asked how I was doing. I regarded it as an absurd question since she was the one suffering a major loss. However, it was then that I looked at all of the photos. Her sister was always a huge presence in our friendship since she was only 2 years younger. She danced with us, cheered for us, and always wanted to be in our "band". She was asking me because I had lost someone who meant a lot to me. Maybe not in the same way as her family, or her current friends, but I lost my first dose of friendship in a major way. She was validating that I had the right to be sad, and effected, and to grieve the loss of someone who felt close to me in memory because of the impact we had made on each others lives.
   
      My embrace of sadness for her passing didn't falter my compassion and sympathy for those who she was presently close with, but it validated me by being welcomed into their grief. My feelings were valid, and our time together was represented with copious amounts of photos showing that the time we spent together was just as impacting to her and her family as it was to me and mine. I spent so much time feeling like I didn't deserve to be sad that I missed that grief is not something you earn, but something that overcomes you even when resisted.

    So what did we learn? That its okay to feel grief for someone you "used to know". We as people find comfort in knowing things are there even if we don't use them. Look at your closet. While the cutting short of a life is no parallel to the "goal jeans" in my closet for when I finally lose 50 pounds they both represent a comfort of having something I don't have presently. They are a sign of who I was or who I could be.What happened to my friend was a terrible loss. My grief, and even the grief of those close to her is minuscule in comparison of the tragedy that is her loss of life. However, all that remains are the memories, and people closest to her to keep those memories alive in her absence. While I have learned, and accepted that when people apologize for my loss it is not wrong to accept those well wishes and genuinely agree that a loss has taken place, even from afar. I do not feel it is okay to wallow in self pity over the past, and let that overshadow the true loss, and pain of those close to the deceased. It is a true lesson in balance, growth, and the difference between self reflection, and self indulgence.

   I would like to end this piece with a special tribute to my friend. I kept her name anonymous in this piece as to not exploit the growth and trials she has endured since my time with her, or her families time of grief. She was complex, and individual in the best way possible. She taught me to love black eyeliner, and that dance school isn't for every little girl. I would have never know what "boo" meant in that Nelly song without her. We hung out with the neighborhood boys on my grams front porch rolling up penny-savers to smoke them like cigarettes. She loved horses, and Native American culture, and wrote a clutch song for our band "Caiti and the Puppydogs"-clearly my narcissism and control issues were early onset, the lyrics went:

"There once was a girl who lived in the country.
She had 10 horses.
She rode them everyday."

repeat chorus 3x

I want to be clear that we were from the closest area to Downtown Pittsburgh, and I am not sure she had ever ridden a horse. To be quite honest I am not sure if she ever graduated past a pony ride in her life, but her contributions were appreciated none the less.

   As far as her diabetes goes, she was diagnosed a few years into our childhood at maybe age eight-don't quote me on that. She would take my sugar, and we would buy her new "sugar bags" that looked less...medical? She taught me how to prick my finger and test my sugar without screaming in non-existent pain, and my gram would give her shots until she learned how to administer her own insulin. I knew not to touch it in the fridge, but to make sure we checked the clock to eat on time. One morning we were sleeping on my gram's fold out couch when she ran to the store to get breakfast supplies. It was far past when we needed breakfast, but we didn't want to get up, and thats when the shakes started. We went down and ate honey nut cheerios to hurry up and raise her blood-sugar, but we were 11 and didn't understand that time was not on our side. I looked up and she looked like she was scratching her armpit, but she was actually having a seizure. I was panicked, eleven, and not prepared. By the grace of whatever is out there my gram ran threw the door as I was catching her from the chair to get her on to the floor. I had never seen a seizure, and was afraid I had failed my friend in some way. My gram went to work on holding her head, and feeding her orange juice while I called the paramedics. This occurrence scared me into being a nag. She never wanted to test her sugar until it was too late, or refrain from candy, or sugary drinks. Diabetes was a burden to her that she hadn't asked for. I'm not sure her mentality of this ever really changed.  

    We walked hand in hand all the way until second grade when I moved schools. There was never a summer without a trip to the beach, or a Sunday my gram didn't put us in matching outfits for church. We came from similar backgrounds, but lived quite opposite lives. My memories with her are something that I will cherish for the rest of my life, and carry with me as I move forward honoring the fact that the privilege of life was taken from her far too early. We both envied each other for some part of our own unique individuality. I kept her safe, she kept me wild, and we grew apart because we grew up. She was my very first friend, and I wish her peace from the illness and metal demons she could never seem to escape. I owe her indefinitely for her fearlessness with self expression at a young age, and never being apologetic for being authentic.

 
Thanks buddy, I hope there are enough Carmello bars and Charleston Chews in heaven to last you a lifetime. You don't have to sneak them anymore.