Typing Out Loud: If a Friend Dies, Why is it About Me?

 

 

 

I received the devastating news yesterday that a friend of mine recently died tragically. I’m devastated for her and our mutual friends, and feeling terribly guilty because these events unfolded over a month ago; we weren’t aware and missed our chance to say goodbye properly.
 

I could explain it away in light of a houseful of family, and managing dramas both large and small. I could also explain it away as to the peculiar relationship I had with this friend, who at times was intense and other times was pissed off at me for no reason at all.
 

But again, back to the missed opportunity to be there for her and for our friends, who were grieving and we were not there. I’m overwhelmed with the thought we could have been, but also wonder if dealing with that would have been one too many French fries on the plate.
 

Is that self-centered? Here I have a friend who died and I’m worried about having to deal with too much, turning the tragedy onto myself. It makes me think of a passage from a short story I read years ago, “From Up on Fong Mountain,” a young girl who was given the assignment to keep a journal in English class, an assignment that coincided with her first relationship. In it, she had teased her boyfriend that his favorite subject was himself, and she asked the thought-provoking question, isn’t everyone’s favorite subject themselves?
 

I think it’s natural, of course. You world exists from your point of view, it couldn’t otherwise. But at what point do you have to step outside of yourself and see things from a different view and not be the center of your world? Does it come down to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the close you get to self-actualization, the easier it is to see beyond your self?
 

How much of the world do you miss by being insular? During my highly dramatic teenage years (they’re all laughing at me!), how much better would my high school experience have been if I could have stepped beyond the fortress my shaky self esteem built to see everything actually didn’t revolve me. In a shockingly reassuring conversation with my friend Jill at our reunion, I muttered a not-too-pleasant remark about a missing classmate who had picked on me because of my hair, and I had hoped he was bald. Jill dismissed him with the remark, “He picked on everybody.” Again, I thought I was the only one! If I had stepped away from the situation, I would have seen it wasn’t me (and my hair) that was the problem, the problem was he was a jerk.
 

Again, back to me. *sigh*
 

Since I have more than the adequate experience grappling with funerals, I guess to rectify this missed opportunity to say farewell, I should ask what would she have expected of me in this situation? A laugh, a drink, a chance to reminisce over some unforgettable moments we shared together. Looking out for the friends she left behind. Most importantly, thinking about her and how she fit into the universe. To borrow from Greg Proops, “Tonight in the cosmos, flying as high as a home run ball is a gal getting ready to step outside for her 5^th inning cigarette break. She of devilish tongue and rogue tastes. An unassuming girl if you didn’t know her BUT a complicated being if you did. If you think of her, know her spirit lives on, at the minor league park she loved.”
 

Later Jules.