There are a lot of words to describe the experience of having someone come into your life for a short period of time, make an impression in some way, and then losing them quickly. Shitty, crazy, mind blowing are a few. I lean toward “amazing” most days when I’m not feeling emotionally knotted and can see the positive that emerged from the loss. Other times, there are no words – just a blank stare and a whole lot of thoughts running a marathon in my mind.
Rae was my stepbrother Dan’s girlfriend. I met her once, June 2008, at a family celebration of my birthday. We had lunch on the deck of my dad and stepmom’s house in Vernon, Conn. There was some small talk of the get-to-know-you kind, but there was also something more exchanged. There was something deeper to this small, short haired, fair girl name Rae. Dan and she were cute and affectionate, like a new couple in love usually is. They talked about a list that they had made of things they wanted to do together, including going to see my brother’s band, the Winterpills, perform. That day they’d planned to go, after lunch, to the Taste of Hartford, an item on their “bucket list.” Before they left, they gave me a funny, potty-humor-centered birthday card. Rae and Dan had both signed it and laughed along with me because they “get” my dirty sense of humor. I think it was the first time I’d gotten a birthday card from my stepbrother, let alone one with his girlfriend. I have it saved somewhere (I hope).
I’m not quite sure when I started to feel a deep connection to Rae, but I knew that I really liked her and looked forward to having her in our family. We had a lot of similarities, like we were long-lost sisters. Maybe I’m going too much out on a limb to say I felt like we were soul sisters. Whatever it was, there was a likeness between her and me that I felt from the day I met her.
Rae went into cardiac arrest in September 2008 and died six weeks later at age 24. Her body had already been weakened by a bout of cancer and its treatment that she endured when she was just a toddler.
Rae’s passing struck me harder than the loss of other people I’ve known for longer. She was so young, so full of life. I loved how she made Dan’s inner light shine. I’d never seen him so happy and full of life. It broke my heart to see him in so much pain. Their youthful love and way-beyond-their-years connection, made me realize that was something I didn’t have with my then husband. Rae and my stepbrother had a kind of love that is once-in-a-lifetime. They made each other laugh and made other people smile. They practiced random acts of kindness. They dressed up in costumes and went to movies. They dressed as clowns and visited Dan’s grandfather in the hospital. They reminded people that it was best to love and to laugh through life.
My now ex husband didn’t attend the wake or the funeral. He’d chosen to go to a party the night before, and never made it home in time to sleep off his hangover and then come with me to the events. As I cried for the loss of Rae, I also cried because I was left alone – again – by my ex, and I knew something had to be done. But I was so scared. I wasn’t going to go through life wishing that I had a relationship with someone who could amplify that passion for life and love and humanity that I carry in me. (Not to mention other major issues we had in our relationship.) I had an honest conversation with my dad and stepmom, and though I agreed that I didn’t want to live like this, I just couldn’t make the move to leave him. But I knew I wasn’t going to take his hurt anymore. Interestingly, through a series of events and conversations, my ex moved out of the house just a week or so later.
I was reminded of Rae today as I sit at my office computer and think about another friend of mine who is very close to leaving this world. Mike isn’t a close friend or even someone I’ve ever hung out with outside of work. He’s a coworker and someone I’ve had laughs with about work and Web design and the weirdness of growing up in rural areas. He’s 41 years young; the father of three little adorable blond kids all under the age of 5 and the husband of an adorable wife. He’s talented, intelligent and great to work with. It’s sad and tragic that his life would have to be taken away by a random act of cancer. Colon cancer was discovered more than a year ago, and because it’s medical practice not to do colonoscopies for people under the age of 50, his cancer was discovered late. After chemo and radiation, he thought he had it managed, until a couple weeks ago. Headaches, pain in his abdomen. The cancer had crept into his brain and his liver.
Reasoning and rationale don’t help me when I try to understand why I feel impacted by his illness and the limbo he sits in now, counting his minutes with his family, saying goodbye, trying to release control to Something or Someone he doesn’t know if he believes in. I don’t even know his family. I’ve never met his wife. I don’t know what he likes to do in his spare time. Yet, he’s been a part of my work life. I guess making someone laugh and working on projects are enough to form a bond.
I saw him last night at the hospital. Six of us from work sat with him in the comfortable hospital chapel. His IV drugs clicked and ticked, delivering pain meds, fluids and antibiotics all through different portals around his abdomen. Mike said the sounds made him think of a receipts being printed out. Once in the couple hours we were there he reached up for a “receipt” and then snapped out of that hallucination to laugh about it. He was a combination of lucid and loopy, strong and weakened. It was like sitting with someone in the waiting room of the afterlife. He knows he going from this life — and probably soon. Yet, we all had the chance to talk about that with him. Not necessarily to say goodbye, but to listen to him and laugh honestly and awkwardly about the inevitable. His honesty with himself and us was a gift.
I felt like I wanted to share my gift of energy work with him, but I held back and only sat with intention of sending positive light to him. I felt ok with that. On the line between life and death are the emotions and comfort levels of everyone around. Sometimes its best to hold, not act, and just be.
Earlier this week I was feeling enormously lonely at work. Though I’m (usually) easy to please, I’m not so easy to “feed.” Life-giving moments for me are times when I experience deep connection between me and others. When we talk more about what is truly meaningful in our lives and less about how crappy a project or a meeting went. When “How’re you?” goes beyond the typical “Fine” response. In the corporate world, moments like these are few and far between.
In the past couple days, things have changed. I feel strong and genuine. Believe me, I cry; but I also feel a deeper sense of strength. When we talk at work about Mike and how we’re feeling about everything with him, I feel like I can be present and not lost in my thoughts and fears. Even people who don’t know Mike but are dealing with uncannily similar scenarios in their own lives have come to me to cry or talk about stuff. Even just for a little bit. I’m not asking for it. I’m not seeking people out or hanging a shingle on my cube wall. I’m just OK with being around people who are dying and around the people who love the ones who are dying. I’ve always felt that there’s some part of me that makes a “safe” environment for other people to be who they are, and today especially I’m realizing that that’s how it feels to me. That that is happening here. Even at work. Especially at work.
There are gifts in the loss of others. Rae helped me to see what I didn’t have and what I wanted. Mike has helped me to see that even in a place that I didn’t think I could shine my light, I can. It’s just a shame that through losing people, I gain something very personal and special. Maybe it seems like that because I *want* it to be that way. As if their passing isn’t in vane or for nothing. Maybe it helps me realize my own mortality and immortality. I hope it’s not that egotistical. It doesn’t seem to be, but I suppose a skeptic could read it that way. The optimist in me sees everything has a purpose (turn, turn, turn). And at the same time, it is what it is.
Mike wrote on Twitter this morning that he’s going home from the hospital to spend his time and to hopefully “change the direction of this story.” And just now, 3:30 p.m., he wrote “I’m free!”
I’m not 100% sure how the story ends, but then again, control is out of our hands. Whose hands the controls are in are up for personal interpretation. I guess I’m up for the ride of letting go — when there’s hope, regeneration and renewal — even among IVs, ashes, bruises and tears.
August 16, 2010
Mike passed away today at noon.
It was through Twitter that many people found out. His wife Michelle started tweeting for him in the past few days when he was nearly unconscious. Through Twitter, he’d made a lot of friends in the usability community online, and so there were tweeps pulling and praying for him across the world. Michelle has got to be one amazingly strong woman to be able to not just take care of him, their kids, all the arrangements, but also get on Twitter and tweet of his passing.
There has been a great response to funds being raised to help Mike’s family. Please consider donating.
Mike made me laugh and think. He had a creative mind and a see-through-the-bullshit way of working. It’s sad and odd to think that someone who I worked with and have collaborated with is now no longer on Earth. If the Afterlife needs a Web site, it’s going to be darn user-friendly now that Mike’s there.
RIP, friend.