I Buried my Best Friend Yesterday :: A Guest Post
Today’s guest post is from Brigid. Brigid is from a small Louisiana town. She is currently pursuing a graduate degree in Psychology. Passions of hers other than Psychology include creative writing, reading, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and bird-watching. She has a pet dachshund and a zebra finch. Brigid writes poetry, prose, and random thoughts at her blog, Scraps of Madness: http://scrapsofmadness.
Make sure you give Brigid your like at her facebook page, Brigid Mochroi – writer.
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Aimee
I buried my best friend yesterday. It was the hardest, most intense and exhausting experience of my life. I knew her since Kindergarten. She was the first friend I ever made. We grew up together. Our lives have been intertwined since we met. Her name was Aimee. She has influenced me more than I can even fathom. But I can pluck out her greatest lessons. And I want to share them with you.
Aimee was born with a kidney illness. She was not supposed to live past infancy. Then she was not supposed to live past childhood. But she defied the odds and made it 28 years. And no matter how sick she got, how bad off she was in the hospital now and then, she always bounced back. Yes, she would have moments where she got frustrated at her medical conditions, but she NEVER let any of her conditions define her. She pushed the limits.
I remember recently, when she was beginning dialysis 3 days a week, a big rock fest came into the town she was living in. She went to it and partied the whole time it was in town. That’s the kind of person she was. She never passed up an opportunity to have fun. And she never met a stranger. She made friends with everybody. Upon meeting her, most people had no idea of the health struggles she faced on a day to day basis. Her illness was something she had to deal with, but it was never who she was.
Aimee’s greatest lesson was in her example of how she made the best of any situation. She had a strength and resiliency that most of us can’t even imagine. She was fire and lightening. Full of pure energy, life, and love. And no matter what she was going through, she was always there for you if you needed anything. She lived to help people and would give you the shirt off her back if she thought you needed it more.
We always knew it was a possibility that she was destined for a shorter time on this earth than we would have liked. But we also understood that she was already defying the odds by having survived infancy and childhood. She focused on the present and on enjoying every moment she could. She and I only had the death conversation a handful of times in all these years. She would not talk about it for long. She did not like to waste time dwelling on things out of her control and she did not want to worry anyone else.
“I know my kidney could stop working any day. I know that I’m lucky I’ve made it this far. I know that I could die anytime. I don’t like to think about it, nobody likes to think about that kind of thing. But I’m here right now and I’m going to make the best of whatever time I have.” That was what she said to me. And that was as far as the discussion went.
She truly did live life exactly as she pleased. Grasping each moment with full awareness and making the absolute best of it. I think that inner strength was a large part of why she defied the odds.
She passed away suddenly in her sleep. The end did not come as we all feared it would. We all feared it would come after weeks of lingering in the hospital and hooked up to machines. We all feared it would be the end to a long drawn out suffering death process.
Yes, she had been in and out of the hospital a lot lately for various reasons, but she was functioning well. She had just been on several short vacations recently. She had just gotten engaged. Her mother and father told me they just saw her and she was her usual energetic and happy self.
She just went to bed one night during the happiest point in her life and slipped away in her sleep. And I think if she had been given the choice of going that way versus going the way we all feared, she would have chosen this. This was yet another blessing. Even in dying, she defied the odds and made the best out of a bad situation.
I hope that I have captured some degree of her shining example in this post. I hope that by posting this, her influence will be extended to those who never had the honor and pleasure of being part of her life. She lived to help people. And by writing this, I want to give her the chance to continue to help people.
We all agreed that instead of sending flowers to Aimee’s funeral we wanted to encourage everyone to donate to the National Kidney Foundation or the Ronald McDonald House in her name. I hope that some of you will be compelled to make a donation to help these causes. They were very important to her. If there is another cause that is of particular importance, then consider making a donation to whatever that may be. Aimee was all about helping people in whatever way possible. Another great lesson in life.
In conclusion, I want to share a lesson I have learned from this experience of loss. Losing someone close to you is the hardest pain you can imagine. But the pain comes from how close you were to that person and how much you loved them. Yet, you never regret the closeness. The things you regret are missed opportunities to see them, the times you put off calls or visits, or the things you had planned that never came about. You never regret loving as hard as you can.
