F is for Friends We Grieve
But life being what it is, you lose touch, maybe geographically separated, maybe just slipping away because your interests changed.
Then you go to a reunion, or a party. You skim the alumni newsletter. And you discover they’ve died.
Your first reaction may be shock, but your second reaction is likely to be a memory. It might be a memory that now seemed eerie. It might also be a silly or funny memory.
My husband and I sat in Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, three days after 9/11, for an inter-faith service. Just minutes before walking in, I’d found out a classmate from high school was in the South Tower, and missing. By then, we knew that meant she was dead.
As I sat there during the beautiful service, trying unsuccessfully to not cry, a thought kept popping into my mind. We’d gone to an all-girls high school, and one of the things that passed for entertainment in those days was a Hairy Legs Contest (those who didn’t have boyfriends had the best chance of winning).
I was mortified. Could there have been a more inappropriate thought at that moment?
A month later, I was having dinner with a group of my classmates, as we discussed a class gift in Carol’s memory. There, in the safety of friends, I admitted my sacrilegious thoughts. Don’t you remember, one of the women said to me, Carol won the contest.
That may qualify as eerie and silly. But I share it to assure you that these kinds of thoughts are not unusual. At a moment when all around you are crying, and you think you should, too, it’s all right to have a happy memory of your friend who died.
Because in the end, the happy memories are the ones we want others to have of us, too.
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