N.K. Murray

I spent my Friday night mowing my back lawn in the dark, wiping tears that blurred my vision so completely that I was certain I would wake up this morning to a shit show mess of grass tufts and too-shorn edges.

I would like to say it wasn’t intentional, but I can’t. It needed to be done, and I hadn’t done it in over a week, and so I walked around and around in circles mowing my lawn trying to soothe my broken heart and swirling mind in the dark. (Nikki note – yeah, so my mower has an LED headlight. . . .that I found with one 5ft pass left to hit before I gave up the ghost. Sighed heavily, said ‘fuck it’ and hoped for the best as I rolled the mower over the last patch and back into the shed.)

I lost a friend Tuesday. His wife texted me in the evening and told me, and thanked me for being a good friend. My first thought was ‘FUCK, I was going to text him and see how he was,’ and I didn’t, and now he’s gone.

And then I lost my breath.

He was gone, and I would never be able to talk to him ever again. I would never be able to share a beer with him on my back porch, or listen to the music of our youth after his kids had gone to bed.

Our friendship, like many of my friendships was unconventional. I met him when I was in middle school, and I have these vignette-style memories of our friendship through the years.

I don’t even remember these pictures, but I suppose there are an infinite number of inconsequential significances imbued with a newly present importance coming back to bite me in this current moment. Those seemingly insignificant moments created another heavy weight resting on my heart as I go through my days, and I’m now knowing I won’t add to them.

We reconnected a little more than 5 years ago. I still remember sitting on a bar stool in a local watering hole, when he walked in and said his back pain wasn’t back pain – it was stage 4 stomach cancer, and they gave him a year to live. I don’t remember a goddamned thing after that, except coming home too stunned to process it, walking into my bedroom where my sleeping husband was. He woke and asked how my night was – and the only thing I could say was Pat has cancer. The following morning, he had to go into work, and saw Pat walking in.

I realize what I am about to say sounds both naive and idiotic, considering the years that have been piling on me without realization, as of late. But friends aren’t supposed to be sick. They aren’t supposed to get fucking cancer. They aren’t supposed to go to the hospital where my husband works for treatment. They aren’t supposed to go to the same doctor who told me there was nothing else anyone could do for my mom and that I needed to sign her DNR. I have lost too many people in my life to lose anymore, and having just rekindled our friendship after so many years, I couldn’t fathom a universe so cruel as to take him from his family and from his friends and from this earth.

He and I spent a lot of time sitting and doing a whole hell of a lot of nothing but drinking and talking in these last years. More talking than drinking, but there were definitely nights that we had more than our fair share. One night in particular, after a night out with the spouses, we sat as we usually would, listening to things we used to play in our cars when we were in high school, opening yet another beer, and he asked me about losing my dad. Having had an adult beverage or 5, I made the absolutely stupid mistake of being honest – I said that I wished more than anything most days that I didn’t have a dad, so I didn’t know what I was missing now that he’s not here. That I wished I didn’t spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about all of the things he never got to be here for – any of my college graduations, buying my house, getting married. That I regretted that I didn’t have someone I could call when I needed a dad to ask a question of, much like how when I really fuck up and hurt myself that I don’t have a mom to call anymore to ask for help to make me stop bleeding. I was just drunk enough to answer truthfully and more than a little bluntly – and I’ll regret that for the rest of my life.

You see, he has two beautiful little girls. And, because he was so much more present with his illness than I chose to be, my words deeply hurt him. Not that I did – but the thought of leaving his wife and his girls behind destroyed him. He just sat next to me on his couch (as Radiohead of all fucking things played) and sobbed as I held him as tight as I could. I cursed myself, wishing I could take every word back and feeling like an utter failure of a friend for holding a mirror up to his worst fear. He didn’t hold it against me; for that I am grateful, but here was yet another example of my harbinger-of-doom personality hurting someone that I loved.

There were any number of moments over these past 5 years that I could share that are indelibly inked in my head and heart, which are now more scarred than inked in light of his absence. I am not a stupid person – I know too much about too much to have had any sort of optimism that there was going to be a positive outcome – except that he had so vastly surpassed expectations that I did something I literally NEVER fucking do – I hoped. I had this fucking delusion that he was going to do the thing that my dad couldn’t – not just beat his doctors’ expectations, but give them the biggest middle finger ever and say ‘LOOK – YOU WERE WRONG’.

Because he was so fucking alive. He was so alive, and I realize now that he insulated himself these last few months, and truthfully, I think he insulated me against the truth of what was happening because he could palpably see how much his illness physically and mentally hurt me. He was like that – not that he would ever admit it. Even when things were shitty, he made it seem like it wasn’t a big deal. Even when my brain was screaming ‘Wait, that’s not good, you know that right?!’ (because I know about too much about too much, of course), he never acted like I should worry about him.

I could give you any number of things that I’ll miss about having him in my life. But, the only thing I will share is that he is one of a very few number of people who accepted me, liked me, and dare I say, loved me despite my acidic and vitriolic self. People who can love you despite you, are people who should be encapsulated in eiderdown and cherished for a thousand, million years – except for fucking cancer and the inherent unfairness of life.

I really love Nancy Stephan’s book The Truth About Butterflies, where she said, ‘There are things we don’t want to happen but have to accept, things we don’t want to know but have to learn, people we can’t live without but have to let go. And in this evening when I close my eyes against the darkness and think about (him), I’ll imagine iridescent wings fluttering, if only for a moment, against cloudless blue skies.’

But, because he and I spent so many nights these past 5 years, and back in the day listening to everything and nothing at all, I think I’ll end with the words of Irving Kahal –

I’ll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through

In that small cafe
The park across the way
The children’s carousel
The chestnut trees
The wishing well

I’ll be seeing you
In every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way

I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you

I’ll be seeing you
In every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way

I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you