(no subject)
Doug died yesterday.
For all of the other thoughts mulling quietly around my head, the one that stands out the most is that I didn't get to say good bye.
That feels immensely selfish of me. What feels more selfish, though, is that I didn't take the opportunity to say good bye when I had a chance. On Friday, when I was flying to Denver, I planned on calling him on Monday to go visit him, after two weeks of not calling him. After promising I would model for him. Promising that I would take him to the aviary so we could draw birds, and that I would play another Scrabble game with him. I had time could have made time, but I was distracted with applying for and transitioning into a new job. I thought of him in off moments without knowing that his time was running short. I had no idea he had so little time left. I thought he had more.
It is good to get these regrets out. For the past 24 hours I've felt incredibly numb. Now, as I type more of them, I feel my insides thaw. Andrew and I left the airport and went straight to his home after we landed. We were met at the door by a woman we had never met--Anne, Doug's "defacto" ex-wife. It was extremely awkward. After a long pause, I said "We're friends of Doug's." Another pause. "Oh," She said, "Doug has passed already." Her face was hard to read. Something small broke in the air and I couldn't hold back my tears. I wasn't sure what to say. Another person I didn't know, a man who I assume was an old friend of Doug's, stepped to the door and asked if we wanted to see him. We agreed because it seemed like there wasn't anything else to say. Inside, Richard, the head of the honors program Andrew and I were both a part of in school, was filling out paperwork for Doug's death certificate.
The atmosphere was so casual. Everyone had finished crying. On the other end of the room was a hospital bed that must have been brought in to replace the twin mattress that used to rest on the floor. It seemed a bit like an accessory.
I don't know, this is hard to describe. Doug was laying on it like a wax figurine. He looked like a perfectly carved wax replica of my dear friend. I feel like I don't have the right to call him my "dear friend", because although he was certainly dear to me, I feel like I betrayed him on some level in the end. My choices make up who I am, and I feel that in this case so do choices I didn't make. Not that I chose not to make, but forgot to or ignored. Things I didn't think about. I am a sum of my priorities. My priorities ignorantly failed a friend who may not have needed me, but who I wanted to know I loved. Who I wanted to do anything for, but who I did not. It makes me feel like a despicable person.
I am touched still by how brokenly Andrew sobbed when he saw Doug. I was crying, but I was keeping my grief at an arm's length. I didn't want to wallow in it. I don't think Andrew had a choice. He felt, while I felt so manufactored and artificial. Some tears pushed through, but I still chose not to access the full depth of my sadness and I still choose not to. I sat by Doug and held his hand, as though he would have known, and I wanted to say "Doug, I am so sorry. I am so sorry I missed the few last moments of your life". I wasn't alone in the room though and felt foolish saying anything to Doug while people who HAD prioritized their lives enough to be there for him were there. As though they would look at me, shake their heads and say "If you really cared so much, you would have been here an hour ago."
Everyone says that looking at a dead loved one isn't like looking at their loved one. It is jarring. I kept thinking I saw his chest move. I felt like he was going to pull his hand out from under the blanket and squeeze mine and, maybe, I hoped, absolve me. I could hear him asking if I wanted to play Scrabble and thanking me for being with him on the midnight of his birthday. He hadn't told me it was his birthday. He just needed to be with someone. He emphasized how important it was for him to be with people, and how he felt that now that he was off of chemo, if he could just be around people who loved him, he was sure that love could battle the cancer. I don't think he actually believed it. I wanted to believe it. And I feel, on some small level, like I killed him for not being near him. I certainly loved and still love him immensely. I could have--should have--would if I could give him that and maybe give him a few extra days to let me tell him the things I had hoped I would be able to.
I don't believe in heaven. I think that Doug is gone. That doesn't upset me, though. Time comes and goes and people come and go and in a larger universal picture that is ok.
But Doug, if somehow there is some part of you still around that can hear me, I am so sorry I wasn't there for you. That I missed your leaving us. I so wanted to hold your hand and tell you how much I love you, how much you helped me, how profoundly you affected my life. How you embarassed me all the time by making me feel special in a world that makes me feel frightfully ordinary. How I think about conversations we've had all the time and how I will continue thinking about them for the rest of my life. Thank you for. . . I have a hard time putting it into words. I feel like I am grateful in a specifically selfish way, but I promise that is not all I am grateful for. I will cry for weeks to come because I wanted you to have the miracle you deserved, even though I don't believe in miracles. I wanted time and space to distort and allow you something people don't get, something supernatural, because you saw and valued life in a way no one else does. That everyone wants to emulate, that I desperately wanted to learn from you. I saw and understood, but I don't know if I am capable of it on my own. I wish you were here to hold my hand and reintroduce it to me when I get distracted. I don't know if I will be able to remember forever. I am worried I will forget, like I forgot to see you last week, when I should have remembered.
I feel like you would tell me not to dwell so much on negative thoughts and to see the beauty and art of the situation, and you would ask me if I had written any poems recently. If I dedicate new habits, like writing poems every day, to you, does that matter? Will it make up for what I have not done?
For all of the other thoughts mulling quietly around my head, the one that stands out the most is that I didn't get to say good bye.
That feels immensely selfish of me. What feels more selfish, though, is that I didn't take the opportunity to say good bye when I had a chance. On Friday, when I was flying to Denver, I planned on calling him on Monday to go visit him, after two weeks of not calling him. After promising I would model for him. Promising that I would take him to the aviary so we could draw birds, and that I would play another Scrabble game with him. I had time could have made time, but I was distracted with applying for and transitioning into a new job. I thought of him in off moments without knowing that his time was running short. I had no idea he had so little time left. I thought he had more.
It is good to get these regrets out. For the past 24 hours I've felt incredibly numb. Now, as I type more of them, I feel my insides thaw. Andrew and I left the airport and went straight to his home after we landed. We were met at the door by a woman we had never met--Anne, Doug's "defacto" ex-wife. It was extremely awkward. After a long pause, I said "We're friends of Doug's." Another pause. "Oh," She said, "Doug has passed already." Her face was hard to read. Something small broke in the air and I couldn't hold back my tears. I wasn't sure what to say. Another person I didn't know, a man who I assume was an old friend of Doug's, stepped to the door and asked if we wanted to see him. We agreed because it seemed like there wasn't anything else to say. Inside, Richard, the head of the honors program Andrew and I were both a part of in school, was filling out paperwork for Doug's death certificate.
The atmosphere was so casual. Everyone had finished crying. On the other end of the room was a hospital bed that must have been brought in to replace the twin mattress that used to rest on the floor. It seemed a bit like an accessory.
I don't know, this is hard to describe. Doug was laying on it like a wax figurine. He looked like a perfectly carved wax replica of my dear friend. I feel like I don't have the right to call him my "dear friend", because although he was certainly dear to me, I feel like I betrayed him on some level in the end. My choices make up who I am, and I feel that in this case so do choices I didn't make. Not that I chose not to make, but forgot to or ignored. Things I didn't think about. I am a sum of my priorities. My priorities ignorantly failed a friend who may not have needed me, but who I wanted to know I loved. Who I wanted to do anything for, but who I did not. It makes me feel like a despicable person.
I am touched still by how brokenly Andrew sobbed when he saw Doug. I was crying, but I was keeping my grief at an arm's length. I didn't want to wallow in it. I don't think Andrew had a choice. He felt, while I felt so manufactored and artificial. Some tears pushed through, but I still chose not to access the full depth of my sadness and I still choose not to. I sat by Doug and held his hand, as though he would have known, and I wanted to say "Doug, I am so sorry. I am so sorry I missed the few last moments of your life". I wasn't alone in the room though and felt foolish saying anything to Doug while people who HAD prioritized their lives enough to be there for him were there. As though they would look at me, shake their heads and say "If you really cared so much, you would have been here an hour ago."
Everyone says that looking at a dead loved one isn't like looking at their loved one. It is jarring. I kept thinking I saw his chest move. I felt like he was going to pull his hand out from under the blanket and squeeze mine and, maybe, I hoped, absolve me. I could hear him asking if I wanted to play Scrabble and thanking me for being with him on the midnight of his birthday. He hadn't told me it was his birthday. He just needed to be with someone. He emphasized how important it was for him to be with people, and how he felt that now that he was off of chemo, if he could just be around people who loved him, he was sure that love could battle the cancer. I don't think he actually believed it. I wanted to believe it. And I feel, on some small level, like I killed him for not being near him. I certainly loved and still love him immensely. I could have--should have--would if I could give him that and maybe give him a few extra days to let me tell him the things I had hoped I would be able to.
I don't believe in heaven. I think that Doug is gone. That doesn't upset me, though. Time comes and goes and people come and go and in a larger universal picture that is ok.
But Doug, if somehow there is some part of you still around that can hear me, I am so sorry I wasn't there for you. That I missed your leaving us. I so wanted to hold your hand and tell you how much I love you, how much you helped me, how profoundly you affected my life. How you embarassed me all the time by making me feel special in a world that makes me feel frightfully ordinary. How I think about conversations we've had all the time and how I will continue thinking about them for the rest of my life. Thank you for. . . I have a hard time putting it into words. I feel like I am grateful in a specifically selfish way, but I promise that is not all I am grateful for. I will cry for weeks to come because I wanted you to have the miracle you deserved, even though I don't believe in miracles. I wanted time and space to distort and allow you something people don't get, something supernatural, because you saw and valued life in a way no one else does. That everyone wants to emulate, that I desperately wanted to learn from you. I saw and understood, but I don't know if I am capable of it on my own. I wish you were here to hold my hand and reintroduce it to me when I get distracted. I don't know if I will be able to remember forever. I am worried I will forget, like I forgot to see you last week, when I should have remembered.
I feel like you would tell me not to dwell so much on negative thoughts and to see the beauty and art of the situation, and you would ask me if I had written any poems recently. If I dedicate new habits, like writing poems every day, to you, does that matter? Will it make up for what I have not done?