September 1, 2005

While riding home on the subway on Monday evening, iPod blaring in my ears I found myself quietly and discreetly (I hope), sobbing. I’m sure people were looking or trying to look away but I couldn’t stop. I tried my best to control myself. I did have a different idea for this week’s column. But, as with most plans life happens and plans change. And, there I was on the “A” train headed home, heart breaking and feeling utterly helpless for a friend. I found out that morning that her fiancé, whom she was to marry in a week, had suddenly died.

Just 24 hours earlier, this woman was another colleague and a friend. Someone whom I had grown to care for but never someone I thought would so personally touch my life. I felt selfish, shallow and rotten. Now, she was in my every thought and all I could think about were the conversations we had outside of work. She loved, loves her fiancé and that was so evident whenever she spoke of him. She admired him and it was a unique thing to see and hear in this day and age and especially to a hardened city girl like myself. I didn’t realize I had forgotten how beautiful it is to see people in love, people that truly respected and admired one another. It is a rarity.

Death, especially sudden, seemingly senseless death as cliché as it sounds, inevitably makes you reevaluate your own life. It makes you think about things you haven’t thought about in a long time, about new things and sometimes making major life changes. Perhaps that is the purpose. We all get lulled into complacency and life isn’t about that. It is fluid, it’s about change, it’s about risks.

I thought about all the “risks” I’ve taken in my life and all those that I didn’t, in my personal life anyway. I always thought of myself as carefree but unbeknownst to me age and the city, dating for gazillion years and just life had caught up to me. I was slowly becoming what I hated most - the cynical, city girl. And whom had it served? Not me, certainly. I still believed in romance, didn’t I? I did but I was certainly more wary than I was earlier. It’s sad and shameful- there are so many of us walking around hiding from each other and ourselves, afraid of getting hurt, afraid of appearing weak. Not feeling anything and finding newer, shinier ways to medicate ourselves. I know that was the case with me. I never wanted to appear weak and I definitely medicated with vodka at times. I can’t help but think about what I might have missed out on. What is that? And while I’ve searched and can really find no meaning in this particular event. Maybe that is the only thing to get out of it - change.

I feel angry and ashamed given what my friend is going through because for the life of me I cannot fathom the pain, and I wish I could. I wish I could take some of it for her. It’s cold comfort for her I’m imagine, but, I think of how lucky she is to have known what she knows and love how she loved. I wish I could feel that as well. I’m starting to remember.

We had this conversation recently, my friend and a few other friends after the last episode of “Six Feet Under”. We sat in a room and talked about life, love, death and spirits and everything in between. Sounds like a morbid conversation but it was oddly uplifting because there was hope. She was looking forward to the future as we all were with a sense of reverence to the past. I thought about the final scene over this unforgettable song and it left me a little haunted and thinking about those that are left behind. She’s left behind now and I’m sure completely uncertain of what her future holds. My only wish is that she remains, as much as she can with hope.

We all know these things deep down. It’s unfortunate that tragedies are what pull us out of our self-absorbed bubbles to really see things as they are. That all of it, everything is worth it even what we are unsure of. And, for someone who was slowly starting to lose faith in true love, I was a believer again. I just needed to be reminded.