Sometimes the good things in life get so covered up by our present circumstances, or by arguments we have with people, or by a loss we experience. While we don't want to spend our time thinking of the past, sometimes reflecting on a good moment or a shared experience with a loved one can bring a lot of comfort when we need it.
I have been thinking lately of a friendship I have with one of my closest friends. Even though she passed away about a year ago, our friendship is still there; I still feel her presence, I talk to her sometimes, and she will always be such a big part of my life.
Before she passed away, we talked on the phone and had a bit of a miscommunication. It wasn't an argument, or even a disagreement, just a stupid and strange miscommunication. However, since it was the last time we ever talked, it became bigger and more ridiculous in my mind than it probably was in reality. Sometimes it really bothers me that we didn't have a chance to clear things up before she passed, as I know that if we had talked after that phone call, we would have laughed about our own silliness and patched things up.
Our entire friendship was based on love and admiration and tenderness for one another. Affection, compassion, shared interests, very similar backgrounds. There was such richness and fullness of the friendship, such intensity, that when she passed it was like I hit a brick wall. It felt like such a sudden stop to something, someone, that was so lovely in my life. And even though I believe that life goes on and that we don't just stop when we pass away, it still felt like a very abrupt end to one of the best friendships I have ever experienced.
However, what was amazing to me was the love that I felt even after she had passed away. There were so many loving moments in the few weeks after, so many times where I thought of her and felt peace and contentment, times where I felt her presence and felt she was giving me a great big hug. It was like her intense way of loving hadn't stopped; and why should it? If life is eternal and love is this big powerful force that cannot be destroyed or stopped, why wouldn't I feel love from her even after she passed away? It was a hard time in my life but somehow still so full of this overpowering love.
When I want to feel her presence even more, I recall our greatest day together. We didn't see each other very often, but we had this one wonderful day, October 21st, our best day together, and it remains so clear in my mind. I flew in to the East Coast from Seattle and met her in the morning at a hotel. We hugged and chatted and laughed and shared parts of our lives, we went shopping, we talked with people, we joked with each other, teased each other almost relentlessly, sang songs at a church service, played games, traded gifts, had dinner together, talked about our future both in terms of our individual lives and things that we would do together... It was one of the best days of my life. And that was the essence of our friendship, all of those good moments and conversations and love and tenderness. It wasn't about the 10-second miscommunication we had when we were both feeling grumpy, a time when neither of us were our best in that moment.
Even though I felt so much love surrounding my friend, it took a few months to not be bothered by our last conversation. It was hard to let it go, to release the guilt I was reliving over and over. But when I think of the friendship now, I feel all of the love that is still there, that somehow, amazingly, seems to still be constantly renewing itself. I think about the laughter we had, the way we got such mutual delight out of teasing each other. That is the important stuff, the stuff I can keep in my thought and recall whenever I want to feel her presence. At the very core of our interactions, that was the true essence of our friendship, the only thing that really mattered in our connection to one another.
