Departure
Wednesday, Dec. 08, 2004, 3:55 p.m.

Today, chil'ren, we are going to do somesing different. This game is called "actually writing about something important to me". Interesting, yes? Normally, I don't write about things super-close to my heart because frankly, I don't have the skills to share--with someone that I'm not paying and isn't prescribing me anti-depressants. No, really, I don't know how to talk about "serious" things so much because I have an irrational hatred of The Complaining and The Feel-Sorry-For-Me's. Not you. Not you AT ALL. You go on. But I hate it in myself. It's a self-loathing thing. But for posterity's sake, I want to say something. Because you can look back through those long months of April, May, June, and July where there were NO entries from me and realize how many words I couldn't find a way to say.

Today is my dear friend Meredith Blume's birthday. Today, she would have been 34 years old. That is, if she hadn't died on April 21 this year, after seven years of cancer. It seems to me that everyone becomes saint-ish when they die so I won't go awn and awn about the kind of incredible person she was. But more about what an incredible person she was to me. Medi was one of three people in my life that I felt truly "knew" me--knew my heart, knew my strengths and weaknesses, knew my dreams and fears. She was that rare person that could take ALL of what comprised you, the bad with the good, and made the WHOLE of you feel accepted, understood, and loved. The truly amazing aspect of this is that while she was one of few, I, on the other hand, was one of many that she made feel this way. That was her way.

So, of course, I knew Med had cancer. She was diagnosed shortly after I moved out of our apartment that we got after college and married Matt. But what I, one of her closest friends, never knew was that when she was diagnosed, at 26, she had only been given one year to live. And even after she went through protocol after experimental protocol, I never considered for a moment, as shockingly stupid as that sounds, that she was dying. You understand, she was such an incredible champ about living that it didn't occur to me that she wouldn't beat it. Probably from a place of my own denial, of course, but mostly because Med had that kind of optimistic, upbeat, happy-go-lucky, never-say-die, if you'll pardon the pun, attitude that appears so frequently in those that have totally been given the shaft. Why is that? Why is it that people in totally hopeless situations somehow have incomprehensible hope and positivity? Is there some Higher Being that is calculating World Suffering that determines, "Yeah, let's give Meredith cancer because she's amazing and will be a role model to others, but let's NOT give it to Michele because she would be such a miserable and self-indulgent fuck?" I don't know. There's something going on there that I can't quite comprehend. But the point is, as ridiculous as it sounds, I never really knew or thunk it for a moment that one of my closest friends would someday soon be gone. Well, maybe not soooo soon, as she lived six years longer than any doctor ever told her she would, but "soon" in terms of knowing that this would be a friend that I would have for a lifetime, you know? Too soon. And Gone is a long, long time.

Of course, there's all the regret and guilt that I think any person feels when someone close passes away. I didn't make the most of my time. I left things unsaid. I never got a chance to say goodbye, because by the time Medi let on that she was gravely ill, she was far too weak to speak. For months and months after Med passed, I struggled because I could not remember our last conversation–-which, of course, I never presumed to be our “last” at the time, so I took no special note or remembrance of it. But finally, I realized that whatever the time or circumstance of our last conversation–-our last words to each other were “I love you” which are particularly fitting because if there was one thing that bound me to her it was love. Because I felt so much from her and because I felt so much for her. Of course, respect, admiration, and gratitude were also central to my feelings for her. And AWE–-at her kindness, generosity and perseverance. At her warmth, sense of humor, and compassion. Her intelligence, integrity, and vitality. And I will never stop learning the lessons she didn’t even know that she was teaching me.

And so, today, I celebrate Meredith Blume. Her birthday, her life, her death. This is not an obituary, but a testimony. Of someone not letting her limitations limit her. Of a woman who had every right to be afraid being fearless. Of a friend who kept giving when she could have been taking. Of a human being who kept living even when she was dying.

I used to cry for Medi because she was my only friend, those kind of cars don't pass you everyday. Today, I have replayed and replayed and replayed AND REPLAYED Prince's Sometimes It Snows in April because of course, Med died in April, literally and figuratively, and because today, I really feel the NEED to be mopey and self-pitying and cry into my pillow. But mostly. Mostly, because I just want to say, I miss you something fierce, my Med. FIERCE! And I want so very badly to believe in Heaven. Because of you.