This very pretty song actually reminds me of one of the most bittersweet experiences of my life.
I have a friend who has gotten the short end of the stick one too many times. It is remarkable to me when I consider all she's endured. You'd never know it. She is vibrant, witty, sexy and deep. She lives life with reckless abandon and I have to tell you, that is a hard thing to do when you've been through the sort of dismay she has. To not be completely disgruntled and instead be willing to live a little recklessly takes a great deal of courage.
She was way too young to have a stroke, but it happened. What was more unbelievable to me was that she wanted me to be with her immediately afterward. I felt like I won the lottery when I understood the magnitude of that request. To be good enough friends with someone, that I was needed in such a dire hour felt like an honor I couldn't really have earned by just being a friend. Sick to admit that her suffering made me feel valuable as a human being, but it did and that is a gift I must be sure to thank her for now that I've realized it further.
I flew across country immediately and got into a rental car in NYC. The weather was awful and I remember trying to curb my anxiety as I navigated blindly through pouring rain on unfamiliar highways riddled with potholes larger then the Hyundai I'd picked up.
When I got to her in the ICU, the reality of the situation hit me and it hit me hard. I'd never felt so much and been less able to deal with my own emotions. She was in trouble, our girl, there was nothing I could do except sit there and try not to annoy her with my overwhelming need for her to get well before my eyes.
Helplessness.
The first night was hell. "The taste of her breath, I'll never get over". I could smell the medication and her empty, acidic stomach as she breathed in and out. "The noises that she made kept me awake". Her continuous IV drip resonated like a fork dropping over and over again on concrete flooring. My ears seemed hypersensitive to the pangs and pongs of the machinery attached to her. The room was cold, but her skin was flushed and warm. I couldn't get comfortable for 15 seconds. I never took a deep breath. I sat upright, stiff, cold, shallowly breathing the metallic air, wanting to hold her hand but afraid that my fear would transfer to her like a closed circuit conveys an electrical current. I had nothing worth saying and so I said nothing at all. Only stayed still and quiet, hoping that she could sense the love I had inside me. "Of all the things I've felt but never really showed, perhaps the worst is that I ever let you go". I am certain that she couldn't be aware of how much I loved her, because it only became apparent to me then and there, that this person was a gigantic gift in my life and that at this very moment I was positive that I'd never wanted anything more then I wanted her to be alright. It would have been impossible for me to feel more love for another human being. It was really very beautiful to be made aware of my own capacity for love, but it was at her expense that I learned this about myself, which makes it somehow even more painfully beautiful.
She'd twice survived cancer and now this. Why her and then inevitably I wondered, why me? Why does this person love me so much that she wants me here?
"Every night she cries herself to sleep thinking why does this happen to me? Why does every moment have to be so hard?"
There were hours when I didn't know if she'd make it. She seemed to be slowly slipping downward. "It's not over tonight. Give me one more chance to make it right. I may not make it through the night..."
In time she pulled herself together and turned the corner and made herself well. As this happened I remember a different sort of pain. Different from the pain of watching her close to death, I'd have to leave her at night in the hospital. Before long she was truly desperate to be through her ordeal. As a nurse I can tell you that a hospital is no place for a sick person. Leaving her was torture. She'd cry, she'd get angry. So in time I did what any decent person would do, I lied. "Tomorrow I'll take you home, I promise".
It's nothing short of a miracle that when that particular tomorrow came, my lie was truth.
"I won't go home without you".
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