Wednesday 13 January 2016

Ed

I've been finding it hard to write anything of value for the past few months. I've written a few posts but have found that because there's something I have been trying to hide, I can't quite focus on anything new. This is my attempt at trying to let out what I'm feeling so that perhaps it will help me feel less anguish.

As I've written before, I am at an age where I am having to experience grief more often than I would ever want. We all reach an age where we become conscious of death and its impact on us, and for me this process began a couple of years ago. In my own opinion, our grandparents passing away isn't the same as when our friends do. Maybe it's because we never think that our friends won't be there when we have kids, or at our weddings or when we're old. We do know that our grandparents will go at some point. I suppose we don't consciously think that one of our friends will pass away at any moment.

My best friend passed away on October the 6th last year. As he lay there in the hospice, fighting to live, I was told by his wife to say whatever I needed to say as he wasn't long for this world. Ed had been breathing heavily, struggling to keep hold of life. How had it come to this? There was so much I wanted to say but I just couldn't. He squeezed my hand, acknowledging my presence. He had held on until I arrived at half 9 that evening, waiting for me. Two hours later, he was gone. And he fought, he wasn't going to go without a fight. I wondered whether I deserved to be there. I had been a shitty friend. He had been fighting Cancer for a while and at one point I had gone dark on him. I just couldn't cope. Thinking about it now, I am glad his wife didn't have to go through it on her own. I wished, prayed and pleaded to god to take some of my life and give it to him. It sounds absurd now. But at the time, I just thought- anything to stop this

'Who knows what the future holds', as he would always tell me, kept going through my mind constantly, and it still does. I keep wanting to call him- he always knew how to calm me and put some sense into me. Most of all, he knew how to comfort me at a terrible time, then of course I realise with the greatest dread that it's his death that I mourn. 

For the past few months, I had lost all hope, not wanting to go on. He wasn't supposed to go yet. Fairytales are a lie. Life is not fair. I had stopped doing everything. I wasn't functioning. My mother couldn't understand why I was feeling this way for someone who wasn't family, let alone just a friend. But that's the thing, my friends took the place where family is meant to be. And that was the thing about Ed, he saw the best in everyone. He managed to see something in me that I didn't know I had. He saw me as a fierce young woman, and helped me find it, and overcome so much. He was patient and kind to me when I had no one in this world. I was so proud to have him as a friend.

It hurts every time science has a new discovery related to cancer. It hurts when I see messages from his wife and realise that her and their little son are always going to feel his absence. It was only by accident the doctors found his tumour, and it is only recently that I am thankful of the fact that from that day on he received the best care and treatment he possibly could. He knew he was loved, supported, and cared from until his last breath and for that I'm deeply grateful.

Until next time,
Sen x

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