My saddest goodbye

I have just recently had to say my saddest goodbye.  I had prepared as much as I thought I could to say goodbye and had been preparing for a very long time.  I did wonderfully in the moment with the goodbye.  I didn't scream out "Don't leave me" even though I was thinking it.  I didn't run away from it and try to pretend it wasn't happening.  I stayed there in the moment and I held my best friend as she slipped away. I leaned down and told her it was okay to go because I knew she had so many she had been missing for so long and it was our turn to share her. I stood tall and held others as they cried over the loss of this amazing woman.  I mustered up every lesson she had ever taught me and tried to show that I was a good student.

And then all the work was done.  There were no more tears to dry for others, no more thank you cards to write, no more plans to be made.  I was alone with my own tears and a hole.  I hadn't prepared for the moment when I couldn't call her anymore.  I didn't know how to live my life without the most constant thing in it.  I hear others tell me she is still with you.  And I know they are right.  That's the strangest part of this.  I can feel her despite the loneliness that is sitting right next to her.  And it does bring me comfort but not the same comfort that her voice always brought me. This woman talked me through everything life had thrown at me.  Disappointments inflicted by her own son, heart breaks caused by some silly person, the joy making her proud by being a College of Regent, and every fear I ever had.  She never pushed me to talk.  She waited until I was ready and then she would cry or laugh or get angry right along with me.  Our last deep conversation was one of me reflecting upon my personality and sobbing so hard that I could barely get the words out.  She listened without judgement and asked me if I thought she had the same qualities.  And I knew she did which made the conversation so much harder because I was admitting a flaw that we both had.  And then we cried together and with her being 84 years old and me being 33 years old we grew together.  We sometimes joked that we didn't communicate very well to each other because we could get things all mixed up but we had a connection that it didn't matter.  We could use words or not use words and still know what was going on.  Just as we did in those last two weeks.  We both knew what was coming but neither of us said a word.  There wasn't a deep conversation where we spilled everything to each other because there wasn't a need for that.  We talked about soap operas and gossiped.  We talked about the nurses she didn't like and the people that drove her nuts.  She told me stories of my mom from when she was younger.  She gave me instructions for others on what to do with dinners that she was supposed to be serving and couldn't.   There wasn't anything left unsaid but for someone you shared everything with, all kinds of things are left unsaid.

I'm doing okay.  I'm different.  I know that.  A piece of me is missing and it isn't ever going to be there again.  I know that I can do this.  I know I have wonderful memories and I know our connection didn't die with her.  I just miss her.