I remember the day as if it were yesterday when Soulkeeper
and I exchanged our secrets in 8th grade up in her parents bathroom while
teasing our hair and spraying hairspray all over our heads.
“My mom is really sick”
“My
Dad is too”
“It’s
supposed to be a secret”
“I
know. Me too”
We whispered….the shame and secret of mental illness was
now a shared burden. This sealed our fate forever.
And then we hugged and hugged and cried in each other’s
embrace and then got back to the more important business at hand of choosing
what to wear that night that would impress the boys we were meeting at the
park.
We got back to being teens. Now bonded forever through
our shared sorrow. Finally someone who could understand what it meant to be
parented by a parent who could barely take care of themselves.
Fast forward 7 years Soul keeper’s Mother dies tragically
and suddenly. The event will never be forgotten. In the papers, the talk of the
school, tragedy, shocking. She left behind 4 children aging in range from 13-21
yrs. Life would never be the same. Soulkeeper would never be the same.
We remained very close for many more years Soulkeeper and
I for the births of babies, baptisms, weddings, funerals, events, drinks meals;
but I pushed her away in many ways unconciously and unwillingly. I sabotaged
the true emotional closeness we had as BFF’s throughout all our school years.
We remained very close friends but our head and hearts did not work in unison.
I was numb. My Dad lived .Her Mom died.
I was frightned to the core of what happened to her
Mother. My biggest and deepest unconscious fear had played itself out to my
best friend. My turn was surely to be soon?
In those years we stayed close but lost important pieces
and parts of our friendship too. Some of it has to do with me unconsciously probably
and some of it had to do with life itself. I had babies 12 yes before she did-we
lived very different lives. In those years I cannot believe I left the best
part of myself. I had to eventually forgive myself. I will spend my life trying
to make it up.
Thank God she had Nanny. Nanny became those 4 kids mother
in the most powerful and tender way. She loved them and fought for them and
worried for them, and was a role model for them. She loved them more than she
loved herself. She may have lost her only child but she made up for it by
loving that daughter’s children. She was their hero. She was their rock.
Yesterday Nanny left this earth. It was her funeral, her
burial, her celebration of her life. Soulkeeper lost her rock. She lost her Mom
all over again. It has been a brutal week. It was a beautiful ceremony. I could
feel Nanny all over the place.
Before she left over the years about seven years ago her
spirit was already at work before she left this earth and she ensured that Soulkeeper
and I got back to the place we always were in that bathroom as teenagers. Even
closer together than those times-I am not even sure I can articulate our place in each
other’s lives at this point over the last decade.
We deserve it. We had the strength to find each other
again. Soulkeeper had the strength to forgive me. We fought our way back to
each other with every bone in our bodies. Her husband and three children have become an extended part of my
family-I can’t imagine life without every single one of them.
We always say that Nanny, Catherine and my Dad are all
hard at work together in the sky making sure
we are there for each other. That our families are there for each other as we
lives this joyous and difficult thing called life. To now be each other’s
Rocks.
I loved Nanny with my heart and soul from a distance. Loved
her for the way she loved her granddaughter. Loved her for giving her everything
her Mother could not.
As I watched SoulKeeper with her three adult siblings kneeling
and praying in the church in a line-my heart soared with emotion. The next
generation of the children in the pew behind them and in front of me. It is
hard to articulate what was going through my heart and head.
One thing I knew for sure?
Forever
has just begun.
I felt the circle of life yesterday stronger than ever. Something
had jut begun.
As I watched my dear friend’s precious three children run
through the cemetary and pick flowers with the wind beneath their hair…I saw us two
little girls-now turned woman…..who made
it. More than made it.
God Bless your Precious soul Nanny.
Your legacy will live forever.
I got to live in the blanket of your love through Soul
keeper. She shared that with me
I will take care of your girl. She will take care of me.
Thank you for the second chance.
A chance I cannot believe I almost did not have the strength to take
Fly..
Fly..Fly high against the sky..so high you almost touch the sky..thank
you..thank you..thank God for you the wind beneath our wings.
