the last burnt sienna crayon

My friend died last Wednesday.

My friend is dead.

And I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach. And I’m trying to understand, and I feel a bit like I did 2 and 1/2 years ago when I had another friend who died, and I grieved and I cried and I felt like I had no right to be grieving so, as I was not as close to him as others were, but I did, I grieved, and I felt guilty back then for doing so. Perhaps I didn’t (and don’t now) so much feel guilty for grieving but instead for not having taken the time to know him then or her now better. And now I will never get that chance.

no. . . i feel/felt guilty for grieving so much.

My friend died last week and something hurts, but at the same time keeps reminding me that we were not close, that I rarely saw her, that we never spoke on the phone, or had a heart to heart or even sent Christmas cards. But I keep thinking of her voice and how comforting it was in a crowd of strangers and how I always thought that she had the most beautiful speaking voice of anyone I ever knew and how I will never hear it again. She had often been a comforting presence to me, and how much pain she had just been through, and how unfair.

I dare not think about her husband, her three children, her newborn son. Yet I try, when I can, to pray for them. I try, but, it’s shaken. What good does prayer do? It couldn’t save my friend. It was never meant to save my friend, but we hoped that it could. We all prayed. Those who knew her, those who never knew her but only cared for someone who cared about her or even cared for someone who cared about someone who cared about her. I Corinthians 12:26 says “if one part [of the body, of Christ] suffers, every part suffers with it.”

I don’t think I ever prayed so hard, for two weeks we all prayed. All over the world, we prayed. Why did we pray? My friend is dead.

Now I look at all of my friends. I look at them and try to be normal, I try not to speak of it because perhaps one is not to mention the unmentionable? I try to be normal with my other friends, because most of them never knew of her, and I don’t really want to speak of it, or anything else really, anyway. I look at all of my friends, but wonder if in two weeks they will be dead too? And that hurts. We never expect this to happen. But it does. The last time I saw her, I did not expect it to be the last time I would ever see her. The last time I saw my other friend who has died, I did not think that it would be the last time. Why did I know them, when now it is done? Why do I know anyone? When will be the last time? Was it today?

And what is death anyway? I know what my faith has taught me. But I don’t understand. Perhaps right now, I don’t believe. Perhaps the question is not, ‘what is death?’ but in the end, ‘what is life?’

Tags: death, grief

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 8:19 pm and is filed under documentary evidence, musings and meditations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.