Saying Goodbye

 A few months ago, I lost someone significant. He meant the world to me a long time ago, and though our paths diverged, due in no small part to my choices, he'll always have a piece of my heart. It wasn't until tragedy struck that I realized just how big of a piece of my heart he still owned. Songs on the radio that had once made me smile suddenly sparked a profound sense of loss. I felt helpless and adrift, but a part of me also felt as though I didn't have the right to those feelings. I'd made a choice to walk away and missing him was part of the consequences.

But it never crossed my mind that I'd be missing him in this way.

He was a good man -- one of the best I've known. The kind of guy who showed up at my mom's visitation despite the fact that our only interactions in years were on Facebook and at the occasional class reunion. 

I had every intention of going to his funeral, but it had been so long that making the trip felt both exactly right and perfectly wrong. Going felt so complicated, and a part of me felt as though I had no right to be there. In the end, I let the awkwardness win, soothing my own grief with the certainty that he knew what he had meant to me -- and still meant, after all these years -- and choosing the easier, private path in case the more public one made someone else's mourning more painful. 

There are things I'll never forget, and his smile is one of them. His voice still echoes, too, and I hope I never lose that. 

There are friends we have forever, and friends we have just for a season, and friendship itself takes many forms. Colleagues. Acquaintances. Mom friends. Romantic partners. Some relationships end mutually or gradually, while others cease abruptly and much too soon, leaving us wondering what happened or what might have been.

I know what happened here, and yet I ache at the injustice of it. A moment, an injury, a decline, an end. The anguish that ensues when a good person leaves behind the people he loves much too soon.

I've been cleaning out closets and, in doing so, I came across a "School Days" book that held my old report cards and a few mementos. I flipped through it quickly, intending to share it with my daughter, who has recently developed an interest in our family history. When she was paging through it the other day, she pulled out some things I'd saved from high school and among them was a Polaroid photo of Peter and me. I don't know who took it or when. I don't remember having it taken, or, for that matter, tucking it away. But now, in the wake of his loss, I'm incredibly grateful for it and for its ability to freeze time for just a moment, to allow me to remember him now as I knew him then, and to keep that memory in the face of this unfair and untimely loss. 

Rest well, sweet friend. And know that all the memories I have, though insufficient in number are abundant in affection. 

Photo credit: Pasja 1000 via Pixabay