When I was much, much younger than I am now (forgive the dramatic tone of that statement, but yesterday? I signed my eight year old sisters up for an online game that I have played, on and off, since I was ELEVEN. *gulp* The mortality? It frightens me.) I met a girl who could have – if I had been a sheep – lead me astray.
We were fourteen and I was on the outer with my usual group of friends (that’s a whole other post, and one day I hope I can write about it here), so instead of shying away from the strange girl with streaked hair and (oh my gosh!) piercings, I befriended her. It turned out to be the best friend-related decision I made that year.
Lyndsie and I have remained friends; close, despite the fact that we don’t speak more than every couple of months. She calls my Mum ‘mum’, and has never once looked down her nose at me or my family. It’s been years since we saw one another face to face, but I could still pick up the phone and tell her anything, everything.
For the last month and a half, I’ve been trying to get in touch with Lyndsie. I sent text messages, I e-mailed, I called. She never responded, and her phone was off, a lot. At first, I figured she was busy; I knew she had only just gotten a new job, and so I didn’t stress too much. Then, yesterday, I got a phone call:
“My mum and nephew were killed in a house fire.”
I expected a flamboyant, ridiculous excuse for her being busy. Like, eloping in Vegas. Falling pregnant. Moving to another country. Lyndsie is a crazy, impulsive person; she takes risks. Not once did I expect to hear her voice, detached and strangely robotic, telling me how her dad is barely coping, but she is, ‘all right’.
God, she really isn’t. Her voice cracked, and she struggled – sounded almost human – on the ‘all right’, and even over the phone my eyes burned with tears. She is not all right, or okay, or even coping right now. I can’t do anything to help except be here for her – and even then, only on her terms.
‘I’ll call you Monday,’ she told me, ‘when I can talk.’
I’d like to say that I rushed over to her place right away and sat with her for hours, talking in that silent way that friends – that Lyndsie and I - do. I didn’t, though. I won’t. She asked me to wait until Monday, until she’s ready to talk about it. Part of being a friend, part of supporting someone, is respecting their need for space.
Of course, mixed in with the concern for Lyndsie are my own selfish fears. My mother’s operation and the changes it effected have already made me acutely aware of how little time I could possibly have with her. To imagine going through what Lyndsie is, even being prepared (as I would be), touches and hurts me deeply.
When I was about fifteen, I remember hearing from a friend that a classmate’s mother had died. She fell asleep at the wheel while driving home from work; the tree she ran into was around the corner from her house. My friend’s father was a volunteer rescue worker, and he was called to the scene. She was his friend, too.
I couldn’t imagine being Kimberly (or her younger sister), losing their mother right as they began maturing into women. I understood that she was angry, that she missed her mother, but my mind refused to even imagine myself in her place. I simply clung tighter to my own mother, and tried to forget the incident.
Kimberly and I weren’t friends, really, so it almost worked.
But, I can’t forget this one. Lyndsie will never forget it; her mother, stuck in a wheelchair. Her nephew Malik, only three years old. Lyndsie will hurt, ache even, forever. And because I have to remember, for Lyndsie, I can’t brush off the possibility of losing my own mother any longer.
The last month has been a bad joke – the kind without a punch line.