Writing on death

I have to write a eulogy. Well, not really a eulogy. I will be speaking at a memorial (a Celebration of Life) for a good close friend who died too early from a disease she wasn’t supposed to get …

I don’t know where to begin. I will have to be sharp and poignant and funny (she would want funny) and represent the group that I am speaking for (we’re breaking it up into groups of her friends … not everyone gets to speak).

And really I just miss her. The last year has been one of panic if I poked beneath the surface of trusting her to know what was going on and trusting her doctors and trying not to scream “I don’t know, man, this doesn’t seem good – are you SURE the tumors aren’t back?” as she seemed to have less mobility every time I saw her.  Poke the surface pretense of calmness and there was panic and fear – huge big fear.

Now the fear has come to pass and she has died.

I want her to come over and drink my wine and eat my food and watch a movie with me and mine.  I want to sit and talk until we are too tired to talk anymore. I want to tell her how things are and listen to her stories of her own life. I want to talk politics and theater and mystery stories and books and life and children and college friends and men and relationships and love and friendship and dieting and strength and exercise and PT and work frustrations and delights and flowers and food.

I want her back.

She has died. She is not coming back.  She is buried next to her mother.

I don’t know what to say about her in front of people. Will I say what everyone else says? How do you capture someone who was so remarkable and so funny and sad and flawed and delightful and kind?

I don’t know.  I have to start somewhere. I don’t know where. I don’t think I can start with anger, yet I am angry. I don’t think I can just stand there and be sad: but that is what I feel.

My fear is that I will write something, and get up to read it … and just stand there and cry until I am led off the stage.

She will not be coming over anymore.