Tuesday, March 13, 2012

being an adult sucks

Family, whether blood or choice, gather for events.
When you are all the same age -like school friends- you tend to mark the passing of major life changes around the same time as each other: several years of graduations, several years of weddings, several years of babies.
Tomorrow is the first funeral among my college friends (Kurt's doesn't really count because we were still so young).
Bruce lost his valiant fight against melanoma.
I certainly pray that this isn't the beginning of a trend,
but it is a mile marker.
We are middle-aged.
In our heads we are all still kids, but the truth is that disease is more likely to reach out, our bodies are more likely to betray us.
That's a fricking slap in the face.
In between doing 4 shows in Virginia today i traded calls and texts trying to arrange getting to the funeral in South Carolina tomorrow afternoon. The plans became more and more elaborate until i finally realized that for everything to come together, i wouldn't sleep for three nights. Not that i couldn't go three nights in a row, but mayhaps that it is a poor decision.
I want to see my friends, want to connect with them and share this loss. I want to hold Julie's hand, knowing that there is nothing in the world i can say to ease her pain, but BE there as a solid presence beside her.
Instead i am taking the safe option, the keep-myself-healthy option, the i'm-sure-that-i-will-regret-this-later-but-it-seems-wise-now option.
And that decision, more than any number of years, makes me feel old and i hate it.
Rest in Peace, Johara Trebb.
Your quick smile and easy humor made me feel safe when i was so far from home.

6 comments:

Kaaren said...

Sorry for you loss. :(

Rea said...

I am so so sorry for your loss.

Anonymous said...

Niki,

Obviously, I am right there with you on the mind-blowing suckiness of the whole situation. Whatever decision you made is the right one. There are many ways to be there for the people you love and show them how much they mean to you, as you demonstrate every day to everyone who knows and loves you. And P.S. I love you!

Colleen

Douglas said...

Prayers and thoughts for you both.

Melanie said...

I wish we all could have been there and I wish even more that none of us would have had to be there, that this mile marker was still years and years away.

Here is a beautiful article about Bruce from their local paper: http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/03/13/3817517_p2/rock-hill-mans-death-from-cancer.html

Melanie said...

Oops, my link was to the second page of the article. Here's a better one: http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/03/13/3817517/rock-hill-mans-death-from-cancer.html