Mary told me that the breast cancer had come back and that she was terminal on June 25th, 2007. It was a Wednesday. The words I hear the most in my head are her telling me "goodbye" after giving me the news. I don't really know how long it really took for the shock waves of that conversation to enter my heart, but it was long into her time in the hospice before I knew what she had really said. I'm sure it wasn't until her last few days before I understood what it meant. The next conversation I remember is the one on July 25th, 2008, telling me she might be going into a hospice in a few weeks and she had only a few months left. MONTHS. She said months. I got there on July 29th so that we could have our last girl time together (4 days later) and she was already in the hospital. On the 30th, she looked better. She was sitting up in bed. We took Mary in her wheelchair to have coffee. Coffee! Great! Let's go home! The next thing we knew, the same day, we were wheeling her into the hospice. What?! What just happened here?
I definitely feel the missing last friend-date, but who am I when her husband, Dave, and three children (two with autism) miss her so incredibly much? Who am I? I am "just a friend." I hear that a lot you know. I guess I'm the person that still picks up the phone to call my friend, and wonders if she is having fun in Heaven. I miss sharing random thoughts, I miss her telling me about the newest issues with her sister, and see what drama is being cooked up this time. I miss the comfortable silences and the knowing what the other was going to say before it was said. I miss the sisterhood we shared and the friendship. I really miss how she was always on my side...no matter what. I think I miss that the most. I could have used a great big, gigantic dose or two of that this year, and last year, and yesterday, and tomorrow.
I don't know if I'll ever be the same person I was two years ago. In some ways I'm broken. I see myself as a vase that has been hit before from other deaths of friends (yes, friends - plural.). So, when I broke this time, I shattered. In some ways I am healing too, but it takes a long time to glue little pieces back together, and I recognize that I'm not being put back together in the same way I once was. However, in other ways I'm healed. A few days before Mary died, I couldn't pray, I couldn't read the Bible. I didn't have any words left, and I didn't have any more hope. There was a moment, a tiny, but real moment, when I felt that God said, "OK, Susan, you have a choice. You can leave me and walk away or stay and continue on my path." I'm sure I thought about it. When you get to the thick of things and you watch a mother say goodbye to her beloved children,and the "Why Mary?" question isn't being answered...well, you think about it. But I made a conscious decision, which may have been the only real conscious decision I actually made during this time, I decided to stick it out with God. I realized leaving wasn't possible. I know that I said, out loud in a empty lobby, the lobby where I spent most of my hours, my lobby, "God, I will stick it out with you. I don't want to leave."
In the hospice, time slows way down. Every hour felt like a lifetime. Every moment that passed was a miracle. An entire lifetime was taken in every single breath. When you would rather see the suffering end than keep a person on this earth, you suddenly understand the meaning of love. Mary's husband, Dave, and I worked pretty hard to give her peace to leave our world. We couldn't figure out what she still needed. We knew there was something. Something missing. Something left undone, or overlooked, what else was there?
In his last moments with Mary, Dave discovered what she was waiting for. He said to her, "Walk in the light with Jesus." And yes, it was then that Mary took her final breath, and did exactly that.
I thought I had a good faith up until that point. But what I had was a small, insignificant mustard seed that Mary, my dear friend Mary, when she took her last breath also took that little seed and planted in a deep soil, she has nurtured it and watered it and has helped me grow.
Thank you Mary for everything.
Thank you Mary for everything.
Mar-Mar I miss you tons.
Friends Forever, Susan
He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.
Matthew 13:31-32 (NRSV)
Peace
I'm so so sorry for your loss. I don't know what it's like to lose someone so close to me. I can only imagine. Your post was so beautiful and I'm sure Mary loves it. I'm sure she is looking down on you, smiling.
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