Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
http://www.ekrfoundation.org/
I don't know how well, if at all, I am progessing through the 5 Stages of Grief. I don't know that I really even experienced the first ones. Although there is research indicating that they aren't necessarily followed in the order Kubler-Ross presented them. I can't really seem to get past the sad/depressed part.
I don't know if it has something to do with the fact that I don't really have anyone to talk to about it, or the weather, or what. It's been just a few days over a year and I still cry when I think about it too much. Some days are a lot harder than others. Seems so weird though because I had probably only seen her once in the year prior to her passing.
By now I should be able to accept it, right? By now I should be able to think about her and laugh. Yet still, when someone says her name, my ears start ringing, all other noises around me get fuzzy and I feel short of breath.
We were best friends for a very brief time in 9th grade. We were together CONSTANTLY. Pretty much the only time we weren't with each other was when we were in class or we were sleeping or, in my case, sleeping in class. And even then, our sleepovers were frequent. I think our mothers were just glad we were at home. I still have a photo of her from the first day I spoke to her. On the last day of 8th grade I saw her sitting by herself in a classroom while everyone else ran around and got yearbooks signed. I can't recall if I had her sign mine, I think I did. I was wearing my Cocoa Puffs t-shirt, which I still have.
I don't know that we really spent all that much time together that summer, that is when it all started though. Hanging out at my house while my mother was at work. Ben, Andy and Chris all lived in my neighborhood, so they were over often as well. Lisa was over when her parents didn't ask enough questions about what she was up to (haha). Steve and Justin were there every once in a while. It was one of the most entertaining times of my life. We tortured our little brothers but yelled at others who dared to do the same. We walked miles in freezing cold just to hang out with our friends. We played in the park. We stayed up late and talked about "the boys". We skipped school and hid from school officials under the fir trees. We danced like fools to bad music. We put vodka in our coffee, and what's worse . . . we drank it. We ate terrible Canadian candy bars. We loved our mothers but never listened to them. She was the best thing that could have happened to me at that point in my life. She jump started what has been, for me, a life-long learning process of enjoying the little things.
I don't know that anyone who has not actually experienced being a teenage girl will ever understand the heart and mind of one. Because in reality, Afton and I were quite different. She was studious, I was not. She was selfless, I was not. She thought ahead, I did not. She was athletic, I was not. She was laid back, I was more intense. We were similar in that our parents were seperated, we both had younger brothers and we just liked to laugh.
Our friendship was disrupted by my parents (understandably) moving me to my dad's house (85 miles away) to finish out high school. Our friendship dwindled as neither one of us had a driver's license or a car at the time. We hung out from time to time in college. But I am told by many people in our "group" in high school that I was pretty much the social director. My house was the meeting place, I pushed for everyone to get together. Apparently, when I moved, people just drifted apart. But we always remembered each other as 14 year old girls. And so when she began to grow up and start a family and I began to appreciate working hard and playing harder, we spent less time together, we talked less.
There was always an uncommon bond I felt with her. A very magnified sense of happiness I felt when I would run into her. But we didn't know each other anymore. We only knew the connection that we once had shared. Perhaps that is what is most upsetting to me. We never will have that chance of connecting again. We won't, in this lifetime, be able to trade stories about husbands and children, etc. We knew different lives.
Her laugh is what I remember best. It was so fun to make her laugh because it was contagious. That cackle could make you laugh on it's own. I will always remember her jumping on my mom's couch, her "snowboarding" on my mom's coffee table, chasing my little brother's friends around to give them hugs.
I distinctly remember one of the few times I was mad at her. It was right after I had moved, she wasn't writing me letters as often as I had hoped. I remember her saying to me,
"It hurts too much to think about you."
It didn't occur to me, until that moment, that you could love someone so much that thinking about them actually hurt. And I didn't actually understand it until she was gone. Even in her passing away, she taught me a lesson. To honor that lesson, I think of her often. I try to live more as she did by appreciating the small things, spending more time with family and (hopefully) being less selfish.
I hope to continue to learn from her. I want to be able to build and maintain more solid relationships with my friends and family. I want to be able to find at least one redeemable quality in every person I meet.
I want to be able to find peace.
Day 8: a picture of your favorite band/musician
 |
| Craig Minowa of Cloud Cult “There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.” ~T.S. Eliot |
No comments:
Post a Comment