She’s gone…but not really

I recently returned from a big, full, colorful trip to Thailand. The tail end of the trip was marred by Dengue Fever–brought on by some tiny mosquito living, most likely, in Phuket, with a taste for my blood. The illness laid me flat. In and out of consciousness for 3 days in a hotel room in Bangkok, I didn’t care what I was missing. I simply wanted to sleep and drink cold water. The recovery is long and slow.

The fever drove through me like a prairie burn, searing everything and taking me down…down to what? To what mattered, it seemed. Returning from such a trip, I’m typically hitting the ground running, with lists a mile long consuming my days–an effort to catch up with whatever seems most important. But not this time. Returning from a Buddhist culture, it seems apt that I’m meeting my return just being with what is. And flying home, it seemed most important that the “what is” is healing from this core-shaking illness. And the “what is” right now, seems to be feeling the depth of what’s happening in this moment.

Upon landing, I turned on my phone and 3 weeks of messages tumbled in. The one that immediately caught me was a message sent from my dear friend, Anna’s phone. But it wasn’t from Anna. It was from her partner, Brian. “Margaret, it’s Brian. Call me.” On the bus back to Madison, I called Brian to learn that Anna had had a massive stroke. That Anna was dying. That my oldest dearest friend’s life here on earth was just about over. This can’t be true. I just saw her. This can’t be true.

But it was. I was able to sit by Anna’s side for hours the next day, holding her hand and whispering secrets, jokes, memories that only she and I shared. Telling her how much I loved her. And that night, she was gone.

But not really. Anna and I shared things that no one else knew. Inside jokes, shared opinions, insights that we’d gone over and over. And I find myself thinking “who will I talk about these things with?” So far, my answer seems to be Anna. Walking around my house, I say the things that are most on my heart–things I’d normally save til the next time I’d see her. I imagine her wry smile when something funny happens–something we’d text each other about. I imagine her. And smile. Here is the what is. The what is of missing Anna. The what is of the heartache I feel. The what is of smiling with a memory of one of her hilarious comments. The what is of love.

Anna, you’re with me. You’ve been with me since we were 4 years old. And when we’d talk about where we were going to travel next, you’d say “I’d go anywhere with you” and I’d say “me too”. You go everywhere with me now, Anna. The “What is” of you, I carry in my heart.