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I had planned to write a very light-hearted summary of some of my favourite un-romances this month.
But then, three days ago, I stood at the bedside of one of my dearest friends as she shuffled off this mortal coil.
While I am not locked in the pit of despair or anything, as this is far from the worst loss I've had to process (and came wonderfully trauma- and guilt-free), light-hearted did not seem appropriate.
So, instead I'm going to talk about something relevant to this particular friendship—loving when it's hard.
Most of us have, at one time in our life, experienced a friend who was a lot of work.
You know the one I mean, don't you? (And, if you don't, that's great for you. Or maybe you are that friend. Just saying.)
This friend was like that.
She was generous, talented, and compassionate. She would go to the ends of the earth to help a wounded animal or save a litter of abandoned kittens and would cuddle babies until the cows came home. She loved music and art, and was quick with a compliment. She loved serving others when her health permitted it. She was one of the most prolific and skilled knitters I know, and she had a knack for hospitality. She had a goofy, silly, childlike sense of humour.
She was also needy, demanding, and could be quite cruel, both to your face and behind your back.
Some friends show you how to be a better person.
Some friends require you to become a better person.
I loved this woman with my whole heart, and with all my heart, I wanted to see her healed of the things that kept her cycling through unhappiness and depression. No matter how many times she lashed out at me, hurt me or those I loved (which were mostly her own family members), or even said bad things about me behind my back, I didn't abandon her.
I can hear some of you now—Why would you remain in a friendship with someone who treats people that way?
It's because I always knew that none of it was about me. It was about the stories she told herself. The words she hurled at others were a reflection of what she was feeling towards herself, not us.
But I'll also add that this is the friend that taught me to use boundaries out of necessity.
A Friendship Story
Before we go any further, I want to clarify something: I was not the perfect friend.
There were times when I got tired of the drain she would put on my emotional resources and would "miss" her text for a while so I could think through my response. There were times I would respond in unkindness, short of temper and tired of her games. There were times I selfishly drew a line closer to my own needs and desires than hers.
But I never pushed her away. In the end, she pushed me away, because of the very thing she had always told me she admired about me—I told her the truth, even when she didn't want to hear it.
Other than a half a handful of exceptions over the years (see above), I always told her that truth kindly, and I always, always did it out of love—with the intention to help her heal and move through whatever she was dealing with, even when it meant that I had to make changes I was not ready for.
(And because I know someone's thinking it, I didn't go around preaching to her. These things happened in the normal give-and-take of interacting with each other. You know, as friends do. And she also shared her wisdom with me, for which I'm glad. She had plenty, she just didn't acknowledge it.)
I think that's why she remained friends with me for as long as she did. She knew I really loved her, and because I loved her, I told her the sometimes-painful truth.
But it wasn't always painful. She was truly a remarkable woman with many admirable qualities, and I would try to remind her of those often.
The sad thing is, she would never believe my encouraging words about her. She was happy to have me tell her those things about herself, but she would never take them to heart.
She couldn't. She could never believe them. The voices in her head were always stronger than those of the people who loved her, like me.
Unfortunately, when we see ourselves as unworthy and unlovable, we often find a way of proving that to the world. The longer we listen to the negative stories we tell ourselves, the more we believe them.
About two years ago, I believe the lifetime of negative self-talk my friend had told herself (possibly triggered by other factors such as illness, medications, and some personal traumas and undealt-with grief) finally caught up with her. She began making self-destructive life choices that alienated nearly every friend and family member she had, including her husband and children. Those of us who loved her most watched with our hearts breaking as she hurt everyone around her, but none so much as herself, for what fleeting pleasure she could gain from her choices.
But of course, that only reinforced the story she already told herself. No matter how much we tried to help her, she just kept pushing us all away.
In the end, though, as cancer ravaged her body, it was not her new fair-weather friends who stood at her side. It was her husband of forty-seven years (whom she'd betrayed and hurt over and over again), her daughter, and me.
We loved her. We told her she was forgiven. And I hope that as she left this world, she finally found the peace she had always looked for.
Why I'm Telling You This
I told you at the beginning of this letter that I am not in the pit of despair, but I am definitely grieving my friend—who was also the grandmother of Levi, the adopted son we lost in 2015.
Levi's death was traumatic and left me riddled by guilt, both issues I still struggle with to this day.
But Laverna's death had neither of those things for me.
I loved her the best way I knew how, and never ever stopped. I tried to be there for her when she'd let me, but I wouldn't let her walk all over me in the process. In addition, I have been grieving for her and what she was doing to herself, as well as the distance in our friendship, for two years.
Now, not only is she out of physical pain, but I sincerely hope she made her peace with God and can finally accept the beauty in her own soul. When I leave this Earth, I hope to see her and Levi hand-in-hand on the golden shores waiting for me.
I wish I could have told you a different story about my friend, one that did not include so much unresolved heartbreak. But that's not the story she left behind.
Laverna is not the only person I love dearly who has not been able to overcome the negative stories they've told themselves all their life, and it truly breaks my heart. It is for the Lavernas of the world that I write these newsletters. (I quite literally pictured her as I wrote many of my blog posts and newsletters over the last several years, hoping that my gentle words would break through the darkness around her heart. Yes, they are for you. But they were written for her.)
My wish for you, friend, is that you will be able to leave this world at peace with the life you've lived. That you would look back on how you treated your loved ones and how you've lived your life without regret, knowing you loved to the best of your ability.
And you can't love others well until you learn to love yourself.
When your friends remember you, will it be with grief that you let negative self-talk and ignored pain get the best of you?
Or will you choose to step forward into the light now, so you may shine as a beacon for others to follow you?
I know moving forward is scary and hard. I know it often means facing pain we'd rather avoid. But if you ignore it, it will boil out of you eventually anyway, and you and everyone around you will pay the price.
The opposite is also true—if you choose healing from past pain, you will be filled with love, joy, compassion, and hope, and will unwittingly share it with everyone around you like a beautiful flower's fragrance.
I hope you choose light. I hope you choose love.
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