Three Decades: Remembering a Friend

It’s been one of those days, the kind that I can’t exactly explain with words. But y’all know I’ll try anyway, right? 😉

I suppose that happens with surprise, Polar Vortex vacations that land smack dab in the middle of the time of year we’re not supposed to have a break from school. Kids are home, hubs is home, and we’re only venturing outside for seconds at a time, long enough for the pup to do what he absolutely must. His poor paws.

We tried to sleep in, but the toddler missed the memo, we’re wearing extra layers, and though I talked myself into a shower and brushing my teeth, that’s about it. I spent approximately three seconds on my hair before I twisted my growing-out-pixie-now-really-a bob, into a half knot, the kind reserved for only my family to see, and called it good.

Yay for freezing days off school, the kind where I can hole up in my bed during naptime under the warmest blanket I can find and tap out the words that desperately need to escape my heart. Yay, too, that these kind of days come with SO. NEEDED. extra coffee, cold toes but warm socks, and super messy hair that is somehow acceptable and doesn’t make anyone even look twice. I’ll take it allllllll. 😉

And also, it seems like the blog has been a stranger over the last few years. Instead of splashing out the words as quickly as they come, I almost overthink every letter. I confessed that to my husband this morning…and then I told him I wasn’t going to worry anymore. Ha! 😉 I guess what that actually means is that I’m just going to write, and you can feel free to stay or leave. (But please stay? Thanks.)

Today is one of those days for other reasons, too. And those wear a little more deeply on my heart and make the tears brim on my eyelids a little more.

January 30th is today. And though it won’t be today when I share this with you (it’ll most likely be yesterday or even two days ago because I totally sleep on my words these days before I publish them) it’s a date that doesn’t pass without me thinking about a friend.

Today it’s been thirty years. 30. Three decades is a long time.

Thirty years ago, I sat in my 5th grade classroom on a Monday morning, writing out my spelling words and trying not to think about the rumors that had somehow already started circulating between students. There’d been a car accident that morning, a 5th grade friend and his family. His sister was a year younger and a good friend of mine.

In my shaky, shy voice, I’d asked, Is my friend ok?

No one knew, and so I tried not to think about it and focused on doing what the teacher said that morning.

But when the door opened in the middle of spelling and the principal stepped into our room, we all knew something was wrong. He briefly shared the details that yes, there had been an accident and one of our 5th graders had been in it. And then he said, And K passed away.

My friend.

Even decades later, I can still take myself back to that moment, where I sat in my classroom, the jeans I was wearing, how much my hand shook as I continued to work on my writing as if, somehow, that would push it all further away and make the news less real. I remember it all.

I remember the days that followed and then sitting at a funeral two days later, gripping the hand of another girl. We were both so confused and hurt, and we couldn’t stop the tears from slipping down our cheeks as we sat hunched over, unable to even look at the casket before us.

The cemetery was slippery that day, and I remember tapping at the ice with my shoes, trying to break through it as the pastor said a prayer. I remember going home with my parents and how exhausted we all were, and so they ordered a pizza for dinner. But I don’t remember eating it because I’m not sure we were even hungry.

That was grief, at least for a ten year old who didn’t understand loss just yet.

What I knew was that my friend, the one who lived just a few blocks away, would never come over to play again. We’d never meet at the park again or ride bikes or become teenagers together. She’s with Jesus, the pastor had told us, and so I think we all clung to that as we tried to make sense of this small town tragedy that never should have happened.

And I suppose I wrapped my mind around it as best as I could, but the hurt didn’t stop even as the years went on.

Her dad was the janitor at our school, and every time I saw him, I wanted to go up and hug him and tell him, I miss her. I’m sorry. But I suppose being shy won out.

I desperately clung to the one photo I had of her, just a newspaper clipping of the local children’s choir we both sang in, knowing it was all I’d ever have. It’s still packed away in a box somewhere, now yellowed and wrinkled from the hundreds of times I held it in my hands.

I’ve thought about her often over the years. Not every day, but always every January 30th and many, many times in between. I still slip out to where she’s buried at the cemetery just outside of my hometown when I’m back visiting. Sometimes I leave her a flower and sometimes I just talk to her. I’ve thought about the friendship we might have had and I’ve also thought about what I missed and also about what her family missed.

I know they’ve thought of that, too, and ached for her probably every single day…the kind, caring girl who left this world too soon. The years have passed and a lot of memories have faded, but I haven’t forgotten the things that made her who she was, at least through the eyes of a ten (and now forty) year old.

There are things in life that change us forever, and that January morning in 1989 was one of them for me.

Losing my friend taught me, so early, that life is fragile and friends should be treasured. Our friendship wasn’t long enough for there to be things I deeply regret, but there are things I would change. I’d go back and make more memories. I’d go back and run over to the park the last day I saw her here on earth instead of just assuming we’d have tomorrow. I’d tell her that I was so glad she was my friend.

There are a lot of things I’d do…but I can’t.

And so, instead, I give myself a few moments to tear up and think about how, even thirty years later, I can learn from a loss so deep…and do better. Be a better friend, be a kinder person, be a little more like Jesus.

That’s how I can honor the life of someone who still holds a place in my heart so many years later.

And the thing is, I feel like I run to this space most often when things are harder, but the truth is that there’s a lot of good in my days. There are things to celebrate, things to write about, things I want to share, and I hope I’ll come by this space a lot more often so I can tell you about them.

I’m crawling out of the depths of parenting a toddler (not really…he’s still a toddler through and through) which really means that I feel like I can think coherently again, that he listens (at least sometimes) to me now, and once in a great while I can reason with him enough to talk him into an orange instead of yet An.Oth.Er. package of foosaks. (Fruit snacks.) 😉 I’m watching my sweet, eight plus year-old girl fly and do her thing, and it’s pretty darn amazing to see, even in the midst of the struggles that come with becoming.

There’s redemption and sweetness with my marriage, too, and while some of those details need to stay quiet, there are some I’d like to share, so I sure hope I’ll make it back here often to do that.

My Father keeps painting His story for me, and I love it.

Life is sweet, even in the midst of a wave of grief and the in-between emotions of missing someone I wish could still be part of my life.

But the journey we’re on is about learning from every twist and turn, crack and crevice, mountain and valley, about taking the sweet with the bitter and the glorious with the heartbreak…knowing, always, where our destination is and shining Him on our way there.

Maybe that’s what I’m taking from the words I wrote today…I’m taking the sweetness of a friendship that ended here on earth too soon and holding on to what she left me with.

May I use those things to love people a little better than I did yesterday.

Thank you, God, for my friend, for weaving our lives together for the season You did. And for today and the thousands that have happened since I hugged her.

You are good. So. Good.