A lesson on ‘being there’ for friends
It’s not the person I want to be.
I can hear my friend say, “Stand in line.”
She most definitely would never ever want to be this person.
A mother who has lost her 28-year-old son to suicide.
It happened in February. I could list all the clichés. “We never saw this coming!”
“Why didn’t he ask for help?”
Friend and her family decided to wait a couple months to have a Celebration of Life rather than a funeral right after their son died.
“I will be there!” I declared more than once.
I definitely meant those words. Now living on opposite sides of the country, we are not as close as we once were. Still, I was there when both of her children were born. She has been there for me over the years.
I was relieved when I saw they picked the weekend after Easter. I would be threading an already crazy travel schedule, but I could do this! I would indeed be there!
Additional facts and life then started to pile on.
The ceremony would be three hours outside of the city where we had lived.
Our big-city house finally sold and I had to squeeze in moving out 25 years of memories. Additional work commitments started coming in.
I took on each one of these like Wonder Woman deflecting bullets with her magical bracelets. I can do this!
Funny thing about those bracelets. I just learned they are called, “Bracelets of Submission.”
I finally realized these were indeed what I needed. It was I who had to submit to the idea that something had to give. It was going to have to be attending the memorial service.
This was not the person I want to be. I’ve always been that friend. The one who shows up no matter what. I wrote an email to Friend telling her that I wouldn’t make it to the memorial service, but I will be in town in the coming months and I’m hoping she and I could have some time, just the two of us. I felt like a failure with every word I typed.
I’m hoping that she isn’t now trying to take care of me when I am the one who should be taking care of her.
“In many ways, later will be better,” she wrote. “I appreciate all who are coming, but I’m dreading the quiet of our lives after it’s all over. I’ve been trying to fill life after service for some time. I’ll still miss him in June. Or whenever. To have you at the service would be lovely. To have time together to look forward to would be priceless.”
And so there you have it, Dear Reader.
What I learned this week.
are just might set you up to be the person the one you love needs.
Daryn Kagan is the author of the book“hope Possible: A Network News Anchor’s
Thoughts On Losing Her Job, Finding Love, A New Career, And My Dog, Always My Dog” and Executive Director of the Just One More Foundation. Email her at Daryn@ darynkagan.com.