And the other thing...

A friend passed away, suddenly (or at least it appeared suddenly to those of us who she'd kept in the dark about the cancer coming back), and tragically.

She was a person I greatly admired, envied even, but whose open-heartedness and open-handedness with her resources made it impossible to do anything other than love her back. It's strange to think it, but I only knew her twelve years (ONLY??!? my brain is going... ONLY?!?) which is far fewer than most of her friends.

The message came on a normal Tuesday mid-October while I was boiling pasta for lunch. I thought at first it was some sort of tasteless joke - no, no, she'd been in remission. I would've known if she was sick, much less dying. She was at the event last week wasn't sh... no she hadn't been. Oh shit. This was real. Hours or days. Come say your goodbyes.

I messaged Martin and choked down my lunch, weeping in shock. I messaged my team I was taking the rest of the day off, I messaged my lead that my friend was dying and I was going to say goodbye.

Walking into the ICU was so surreal - familiar from my December 2020 adventure, but also no longer crammed full due to COVID crowding. But so unfamiliar on foot (rather than gurney), and with tears in my eyes. 

How were we supposed to know where to find her? Somehow we managed to tailgate someone in, and the nurse just.. pointed. It occurs to me now that they must be somewhat familiar with the gathering cloud of pre-grievers, and know not to make it any harder than it has to be.

We walked in. There she was, swollen and sedated, looking nothing like the bold, vibrant, excitable person I knew - my friend - and I could see that death was nearby. I don't know how. I hate seeing it. It scares and unnerves me and I become instinctive and irrational. 

I took her hand, warm and alive, and spoke my truths to her through my tears. And we stood there and then sat there for awhile, holding her hand and trying to let it seep in that this was her, this was how she was doing, this was ending.

After awhile her family came back in, and we gave up our spots to them. 

I was told there was a waiting room, but I had no idea how I was supposed to find it. 

I shouldn't have worried.

A few short steps down the hall I looked in to the first waiting room, to find it full of people with colorful hair and tattoos and rock/metal aesthetics, and I knew Her People Had Gathered. And among the awe of an all-call being answered across the country, that Her People Must Attend, I felt the familiar pangs of being an outsider. 

I was so honored to have been called at all, to have been let into the knowledge before it was too late, to get to say goodbye. But I still felt myself on the outside of twenty- and thirty-year friendships, felt awkward and unsure. As more people arrived and the room filled up, I felt I had no right to be there, taking up space that those thirty-year friends might need, and so we departed. 

That night I tossed and turned, thinking of her partner's quiet calm and strength as he gently shuffled people in and out of her room. If she didn't wake up, would he have to make the call for her? I could only imagine in the three years since her diagnosis, they'd had time to discuss it. I hope they had. I tried not to think about it too much.

I finally got off my ass and got my trust and will printed, so we can notarize it.

The call came the next evening. The only bright spot was the nexus of love and support that coalesced around her, and that she'd been conscious enough to make her wishes known. Her partner did not have to make the call. She passed peacefully in the arms of her community.

We were asked not to vaguebook about it until an official announcement could be made. We tried - but for those of us who know the Odd Salon crew, the signs were there plain as day. We had a wake. The announcement went out. But I've felt emotionally constipated for weeks now, like I need to hide how I feel about it. Like I don't have the right to my own grief. Like writing this down is going to get me in trouble somehow.

But I'm grieving so much these last 24 hours, it feels like this just sort of... fell out... along with everything else.

Numb

 I am still immensely grateful for the antidepressants. I am holding it together really well, like even to the point where I look at myself from afar and go "huh, she's doing pretty well" even while there's an endless churn of fear and pattern-finding and worry going on inside.

I went to our favorite adventure-themed bar on election night because they had an all-night happy hour. It helped to be with people, even though I felt somewhat pathetic being a decade older than all of them (at least a decade, possibly two RIP). I got to talk theatrical effects with the designer which was SO incredibly pleasant after wondering for all this time.

But the display in the corner kept ticking up for Trump, and the nausea that had plagued me all day didn't play super well with lots of cocktails, so eventually I walked myself home. Bereft of a food plan, and still feeling nauseated, I made popcorn. And as I sat down to eat it at the table, I opened my phone and saw that they'd called it.

I sobbed. I grieve. I feel that I've seen the death of a nation. I feel that I've seen this before.

In January 2017 I wrote, in the other place

And then it's Yeats chasing Niemöller, ["First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist...", and the world is] turning and turning in a widening gyre.

Looking back at the things that terrified me then, I realize how much we've lost. The US's unchecked capital greed has weakened it to the point that it's been completely captured and encircled by a hostile outside entity. 

I do not know what will happen next, but I do know that any last lingering promises of the "normal" life my parents were given have now been made effectively null and void.  Between climate change and the total breakdown of democracy, with a sham Supreme Court and regressive insanity in the executive and senate, even if the House evens out it's going to mean nothing. We on this coast are a popular topic for sneering and fearing among the right, regardless of how much, if any, of it is deserved. We'd just been crawling our way out of the "liberal hellscape" lies toward the recovery that'd been withheld from us. 

The country (appears to have*) voted for war and famine and inflation and death. 

We now have until January to brace ourselves for impact.