brightest and best

Brightest and best of the stars of the morning, dawn on our darkness and lend us your aid.

I have two responses to outside stimulus: apathy and OMG HOLY SHIT!  In the best of times I’d have Valerie to join in my apathy, Cindy to join in my OMG HOLY SHIT!, and Gretchen to shepherd our energies in the proper direction, validate our apathy, or retune us to the proper response.

We all need a little Gretchen in our lives; but I need more than you do. 

Today, Matthew informed us that if we were going to visit Nicole that it was the time.  Her cancer has spread.  I cried at my desk, at work, in full view of my coworkers. 

Yes, I cried when my grandmother died but it was out of bitterness that she never loved me, or remorse that there was never a place in my heart for her.  Yes, I cried when I realized that my relationship with my mother’s family had become intolerable, or that I had been an active ingredient in that unhealthiness.  All those were all selfish tears. 

Today I cried and it was like the other times, out of selfishness.  I’m going to lose an incredibly dear friend.  I will regret all the missed opportunities to let her know how titanic a presence she was in my life and I will regret the times I didn’t call or write out of that timid fear of not knowing what to say. 

When my grandmother died my great grandmother, the only one who lost something that day, gave me specific instructions about when it was okay to break ranks and show emotion and that any tears would be jealous ones because she’s gone Home and we have not (yet). 

When a friend died while I was at University and it was something I disclosed to very few people, one of them my coach.  Her words run though me at times like these.  She reminded me that when Lazarus died Jesus wept, but in the original Greek it says that Jesus’ soul raged in anguish.  You see, we’ll see Nicole again in Glory and we’ll have eternity with her; but the time between now and then seems like an eternity in and of itself from this end of it. 

When I had the opportunity to speak with Matthew it was over the Internet and I cried again, this time it was for him.  I cannot imagine, nor would I want to, what he’s going through.  I don’t know what it is to love someone and to lose that person so very soon. We are not old and we’ve not had that much time together.  He too is a great friend and I am blown away by his strength during this trial; even if it were just a show I’d be in awe that he did that for us.  I’m a hot mess, and she is just my friend and mentor. 

When Senator Kennedy died the President said that the difference between Senator Kennedy’s death and his brothers is that with Senator Kennedy we were afforded the great gift of being able to say, thank-you and good-bye. 

I believe that in the situation where I had the great gifts of Valerie, Cindy, and Gretchen the consensus would be that the opportunity be taken to visit Nicole and use that precious gift of time to say those things to her as well.

When my grandmother died I was dispatched on my father’s orders and great-grandmother’s wishes to bid her farewell and I regret this.  I’ve endured a great deal of abuse about my motives for going from family members, especially my grandmother’s psychotic younger sister.  There are other things like this that I’ve done that I now regret but the regret of having done something is never as acute as the regret of that which was left undone – both sins are forgivable but only one is tenable. 

If I can round Amy up, and I hope I can, we’ll go to Texas and visit Nicole and say goodbye.  If I cannot, and perhaps even if I can, Chaos Bean is going to travel with me (she’s picking out cowboy boots and hat so she can ‘blend in’ in Texas).  Other friends will go later but if I don’t go I’ll regret it forever because whenever I needed Nicole she was there for me and if I were in her place she’d have already visited.   

 My friends have always been God’s apology for the sorry bunch of losers he gave me for a family and foremost among them has always been Nicole.  There is hope of recovery but the cancer has spread so that while I hope I look back on this in eight or ten years and chuckle I’m not sure how much fight she has left in her.  She deserves rest.  She’s given us so much and more than anyone thought someone should have. 

There are so many gifts that Nicole has given us and her example of faith, humor, perseverance, love, tenacity, and a love of Nebraska and Husker Football that each of us will carry with us forever.  She is a gift that will never collect dust, end up in a yard sale or be outgrown.  At many a funeral or memorial you’ll hear, “well done, my good and faithful servant,” but in this rare moment it is true. 

Let us not give in to our apathy but instead give in to our compulsion to react.  Let us find ourselves in action.  

Comments

[Colleen]

Wow, this made me bawl. I don't even know Nicole, but I am feeling the sadness, and, after being at many funerals this year myself, telling you that the only real comfort will come from the peace of Jesus. It's real and very deep. My prayers are with you and her.