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What My Friend’s Death Taught Me About Life, Loss, and Writing
Friday, October 20, 2023Through writing, I’m less burdened by the heaviness of life’s blues
By Terri Linton
I’m at an age when death visits more frequently. Its approach is stealthy, like a heavy-breathing intruder lying in wait. But knowing people who’ve died and losing people are two different things. With the former, we express our heartfelt sympathy. We hold in our heart and mind those closest to the departed. We send food, flowers, money, and messages––often in lieu of ourselves. But in loss, we grieve even when the reservoir of tears has gone dry. We feel that mysterious drift of air that causes us to straighten our backs. We sink our noses into worn sweaters. We push against time to hold on to cherished memories, once bold and vibrant, now quickly filtering, fading into sepia.
When I entered the funeral parlor, filled with the people who had come to pay their respects to my friend Deb, I immediately tucked my fingernails and their chipped nail polish into my clenched fist, just as I had done in the parking lot of our office on the first day we met. Deb was kvetching about one of our colleagues: “Did you see her chipped nail polish? I mean come on.” For a long time, I never understood my friend’s disdain for something this trivial. Over time, I came to realize that she wasn’t being snotty or pretentious. She was born in the 1950s, and raised in a time when the performance of womanhood and femininity were much different than they are today. Part of that performance was presenting as close to perfect as possible—at all times. For Deb, like many women of her era, only her best self was suitable for public consumption. She carried that same expectation for those around her.
Everyone in attendance at her funeral laughed when a former student of hers, who drove her to chemo appointments and cooked the beans that she craved during the last weeks of her life, shared a memory. “She’d tell me, ‘Yolanda, it’s not mines. It’s mine.’” This is who my friend was. Always nudging you towards your highest self.
Early in our friendship, I was far from my highest self, although no one would know by looking at me. It was our admiration of each other’s exteriors—wardrobe, bags, shoes—that sparked a mutual interest, but I could no longer mask the mess I was in: a marriage on the brink of ruin, and a baby on the way that I knew I’d likely raise by myself. Deb would be right there with open arms and a tight hug whenever I’d emerge from my car or a bathroom, chest heaving, cheeks wet with heartache. But when it became apparent to her that I wasn’t ready to digest her advice, as a woman who’d traversed the uphill battle I was embarking upon, she stopped giving it. We remained friends, but she no longer coddled me or was an audience for my self-pity. Instead, she allowed me the space to hurt and heal.
Eventually, I did.
One day, while leaving work, I saw Deb pulling out of the parking lot in a Honda. “Where’s the Benz?” I yelled, walking up to her driver’s side. “Turned it in. Do I really need a Benz? I’ve driven one for years. Who gives a damn?” Trading in the Mercedes for the Honda was just the beginning of her shedding people’s perceptions, judgments, and the material things that she felt were beginning to weigh her down. Following the Benz, Deb sold the charming, ranch-style home with the greenhouse where we sipped wine and laughed until our voices left us, along with the handsome wood-paneled library where I, a writer at heart, imagined myself weaving words together, making magic from imagination.
At our last lunch date, Deb’s maple eyes beamed as she described her new garden-style apartment in an upscale Connecticut town. Her only child was off charting her own course. The demands of motherhood had waned, and she could now give more attention to her wants, her joy.
For her, that was dance.
In the funeral parlor, as loved ones and friends eulogized her, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the video that was playing of Deb dancing at a performance just one year ago. At 67, her thick hair was pulled into a ponytail that whipped with every spin: a brilliant platinum grey that she no longer camouflaged with color. Black leggings and a fitted top framed her age-defying figure. She was stunning—grace and beauty in motion.
As the video played, I wondered again why she didn’t tell me the cancer was back and why she wouldn’t let me be there for her, just as she’d been by my side when I lost my baby. Why hadn’t I dug deeper for answers? I had missed all the clues. When I now look for a reprieve from the guilt, I reach for her daughter’s words: “She loved you,” her daughter told me as I left the funeral.
During a zoom chat with a friend who now lives in Israel, I apologized for my inability to stop crying. Just as Deb had done for me too many times to count, this friend too comforted me. My friend said, “What if you don’t minimize your feelings? What if you grieve and feel the hurt of not having had the opportunity to be there for her?” I needed to hear this. After losing someone, love, guilt, and regret can become confusing and rivalrous companions.
Days after Deb’s funeral, the permanence of her absence began to settle. I chided myself for deleting what turned out to be her last voice message. I found myself scouring the internet for her digital footprint. There was the chestnut brown pixie-cut and Marilyn Monroe blond bombshell versions of her. There was the dedicated professor proudly smiling with students at college events. There was the doctoral dissertation she completed at 63. There was the dancer—the same one who kept all of us mesmerized at her service. I pressed play over and over, and watched her dance like a star for no accolades or promise of reward, but simply to fulfill her heart’s desire.
When I now look for a reprieve from the guilt, I reach for her daughter’s words: “She loved you,” her daughter told me as I left the funeral.
I often bemoan my pursuits as a writer, slowly making my way in an industry where opportunity seems most abundant for those who are everything I’m not: young, white, and childless. Most days, I quietly obsess over whether I’ll find an agent, write a book worthy of being a celebrity’s book club’s pick, or make the amount of money that will allow me to teach and freelance only when I want to––money that will afford me luxuries called time and freedom to do the exact thing that I want to do more than anything else: write.
A former writing professor recently suggested that maybe Deb didn’t tell me about her illness because she didn’t want that to be our final chapter. Perhaps she wanted me to remember her only as I knew her: beautiful, vibrant, determined, strong. I never considered that possibility. In addition to the memories of our 14-year friendship, maybe her parting gift to me was a gentle urging to take a revised look at why I write. Similar to Deb’s dancing, I can’t imagine myself ever not writing. It’s the one thing that I’m compelled to do, no matter the outcome. Deb knew that I felt lucky to find such a thing. Years ago, after reading a now obsolete blog post I’d written, she emailed: “This is amazing—your writing. I’m so happy for you. You’re on a good path.”
I don’t know where this path will lead. I have no control over that. But I do know that with words—through words—I’m moving more and more to the beat of my own rhythm, and I’m less burdened by the heaviness of life’s blues.
Terri Linton holds a BA and MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and a JD from Rutgers Law School-Newark. She is an adjunct professor of English and Criminal Justice at universities in New York and Connecticut, and an instructor at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. Prior to entering academia, Terri worked in the criminal justice system on the state and federal levels. Her writing has appeared in the anthology Solo Mom Stories of Grit, Catapult Magazine, Mothermag; and other websites. In 2021, Terri was awarded a Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grant for nonfiction writing. She is currently working on her manuscript, a collection of personal essays that center Black girlhood, womanhood, and motherhood.
