I've been finding it difficult to come to terms with what a loss like this means to me, and to the wider world. You see, she was quite a wonderful creature. A fiercely loyal friend, passionate, caring, protective and unafraid. She was the first real friend I had that used "fuck" a lot, and it delighted me.
She was the kind of person, who really wanted to know how you were going when she asked; she didn't waste words; she didn't cower away from her differences to make her life easier. She was courageous - even before the cancer. The world positively needs more people like her in it, as do I.
My grief has been tinged with the sourness of guilt. We lived several hundred kilometres away - and since her diagnoses she would decline my haphazard requests for a catch up. I recognised that she probably didn't want me to see her, and while I respect that, I also wished I had tried harder. To add insult to injury, I couldn't attend her funeral.
M was one of those special people, you meet and you know instantly that you have found a member of your tribe. I think, selfishly, what upsets me the most is that I won't have this wonderful spirit in my corner anymore (not physically at least). In this war called life, I have lost one of the most valuable members of my army. I don't have a lot of people in my tribe, and M's absence is a massive void.
In a frantic letter I wrote to her before she passed, I told her that I see reminders of her everywhere. In encounters with strangers, in bold reds, Greek reminders, moments of compassion and sharp witted folk. God, how I will miss her.
Years ago, we went to see Gotye together - the show was held in some amphitheatre in the bush. There were so many rules - we had to abandon pillows and blankets, and we had to deal with pushy hipsters and assholes too. At the end of the concert, as the line of cars abandoning the empty stage stretched the horizon, we parked, turned up the music - opened all the doors to the car and danced in the dark field until the cars went away. That was a very M thing to do.
The last time we saw each other in the flesh - we'd spent quite a few hours together, had a meal and a good chat, she dropped me back at my hotel, and before she left, she hugged me so hard. I was crying my eyes out, she said "I love you" and I told her I loved her back. We held each other for such a long time. It wasn't long after that, that she texted me with the news of her cancer. I'm sure she knew that last time we met, I think she spared me, I think maybe she knew that was the last time we were going to see each other. I wish I'd known.
I don't know what happens to people when they die, but I refuse to believe they stop 'being'. I hope they go somewhere nice, where they don't have any bad thoughts anymore; a place where they don't have to worry about pain, fear or loss. Where their spirit is free to flit and meander wherever it so desires. Perhaps as we live we leave invisible star dust trails woven in the people and places we encounter. I keep M in my heart, and there she shall stay for as long as I am waking.
Good bye beautiful M.
..No one's ever lost forever
When they die they go away
But they will visit you occasionally
Do not be afraid
No one's ever lost forever
They are caught inside your heart
If you garden them and water them
They make you what you are
No one's ever lost forever
When they die they go away
But they will visit you occasionally
Do not be afraid
No one's ever lost forever
They are caught inside your heart
If you garden them and water them
They make you what you are.
~ Amanda Palmer and The Grand Theft Orchestra
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