Thursday was a very hard day… It was my allotted day of the week to visit my friend in the hospital.
My dear friend is dying.
I allot myself 1 or 2 days every week to go visit her and schedule it on my calendar because otherwise, it would be much too easy to stay at home, bury my head in the sand, so to speak, and pretend it isn’t happening.
To just pretend that she’s at home, in her tiny little apartment listening to music, watching Downton Abbey or getting ready to go see a band…
Unfortunately, that seems to be what most of her friends are doing, but I can’t do that.
I can not let her down.
I have to be there with her, because no matter how hard it is for me, it’s much harder for her.
So, I go once or twice a week, sit with her and hold her hand.
I talk to her and tell her all the news I can think of and then we just sit quietly. I stay with her for atleast 2 hours but I try to stay for 4 to 6 hours.
When I leave, she cries and then I cry.
There’s a lot of crying.
Sitting with someone and holding their hand isn’t much. And I wish I could do more but I cannot, so this is what I have to do.
It is extremely hard to see her this way.
She’s so young.
Four years younger than me; never married, never had children, never learned to drive and not because she didn’t want these things but because she never had the opportunity. She never found that right person to love her as much as she loves him.
In fact the man she loves, has not been to see her even once. He hasn’t even contacted her family.
The sad truth
It is not likely that I’ll be there with her when she passes. But hopefully her mother will be.
Her mother spends 7 days a week with her and stays for as long as she’s allowed, so hopefully her mother will be there holding her hand when she passes and she will not be alone.
Technically, I do not believe in heaven but I get more comfort from believing that my father is in heaven than I do believing that he’s just gone, returned to the dust that he came from.
So, I’ll keep on telling myself that my daddy is in heaven and when my friend passes, I will tell myself that she is in heaven too.