RIP Beth

I wrote about death a couple years back after my grandmother passed away.  It was expected because she was in her 90s.  She had lived a long full life.  She had loved and been loved.  She had travelled.  She had knocked down barriers for women in the workplace.  Grandma had lived.  So although it hurt tremendously when she passed away (and I still miss her today), I expected to experience that grief.  That was a normal part of getting older.  I may not have liked it but I knew that eventually it would happen.  I was resigned to accepting it because I knew I couldn’t change that simple fact that death always follows life.

But when a death occurs that is totally and completely unexpected, how do you accept that?  How is that a normal part of getting older?  How do you not feel angry and gypped for yourself and for your friend whose life is now over?  I don’t know. 

My friend, Beth, was a sorority sister of mine.  She was a year younger than me.  She was incredibly talented.  I can’t remember exactly how many of her designs became our party t-shirts but I’m pretty sure I still have at least one in my closet.  I remember Beth as a twenty-something because that is how old she was the last time I saw her alive.  I would see her postings on Facebook and be completely speechless at how beautiful she had become (not that she wasn’t beautiful in college but there was an added dimension of wisdom and confidence in her beauty now that wasn’t there in college.  But then how many of us can say we had that wisdom and confidence in our 20s either?) 

I would smile at pictures of her with her girls.  I would “like” her postings.  Facebook made it possible for me to continue to ‘know’ her and be happy for her as she journeyed through life.  And now her journey is over here among the living.  She doesn’t get any more time to love and be loved.  She doesn’t get any more time to change the lives of people she meets.  She doesn’t get any more time to impact her daughters’ lives with nuggets of wisdom (like what to wear on your first date, how to be taken seriously as a woman, how to be able to turn your passion into your career, how to know if you are really in love, and how to care for their own children to come.  I could go on and on but that knowledge hurts too much.)   She doesn’t get any more time to be blissful and joyful, to laugh, to dance, to have a beer on a sunny, breezy afternoon with her friends.  She doesn’t get to be an old woman.   Her journey is over here among us.

There are so many sayings and clichés to help you deal with grief.  There are always lessons to be had in every situation.  I’m not writing this to make me or you feel better.  I’m writing it because it’s true and it sucks.  Big. Time.

My life is fuller because part of her journey included me.  I will always see her smiling and hear her laughing.  I will grieve and I will get past my sadness and anger because, apparently, I am growing up, reluctantly. 

And I promise to live and to love fully every day.

Godspeed, Beth.  See you on the other side.