On December 6th I remembered the birthday of my dear friend who died 20 years ago. Here is the excerpt from my journal for that day.
As I write this today my heart is heavy. Today would have been my friend Jill’s 55th birthday. We met in 1979 as 7th graders. We became fast friends, even rooming together in college. She and I shared such a wonderful companionship, her direct approach to everything was a nice counterbalance to my passive, more subtle approach. Jill died in 2001 from Lymphoma. She was just 34. I still miss her. On what would have been her birthday this year I will write her a letter. I want to tell her all the things that have been going on in my life. I am feeling proud to be able to tell her about myself and what I had been up to these past 20 years. I want her to know of my children, and of Kurt’s new adventure. She and Kurt were always close friends. She went with him when he bought my engagement ring and helped him choose the perfect ring. When Kurt and I eloped during my junior year of college, we opted to each include one friend. Jill was my obvious choice. She stood beside me on that snowy February day in 1988 when Kurt and I declared our love to one other. She was there for the birth of each of our four children and even helped paint the nursery for our fourth child. I have a photograph of Jill, paint brush in hand and me swollen and awkward sitting together on the floor of what became Calvin’s room. Every year around this time my heart aches, both with the gratitude I feel for having had the opportunity to have this kind of friend and the devastating hole her death has left in my life.
Jill was a special. Friends have always been important to me. “All together fun forever” was the theme of my childhood. I was always surrounded with lots of friends, and I loved to have a good time. My memories of childhood include slumber parties, sleep overs, playing dress up, Barbies, traipsing through the woods, running in the fields, and wading the creek. Anything and everything with my friends.
I am thankful in some ways for my very extroverted mother who had no idea what an introvert was let alone how to raise one. Because my mother was uninformed of the needs of an introvert, I was not allowed to spend time alone. My brother and I had doors on our bedrooms, but they were to be always left open. Even at night. Especially at night. I didn’t think this was strange until I began staying with friends and they were permitted to close their bedroom doors. As I think of it now, not only did my mother encourage friendships for me, but she insisted on them. I think every weekend of my youth was spent at a friend’s home or with someone staying with me. It was good.
What has brought me tremendous joy has also been a source of despair. Making friends and having friendships was an important part of my growing up years. Loss has also been a part of my experience with friendships. When I was in kindergarten I lost my friend David. My brother and I went to a babysitter a few hours a week while my mother worked. The babysitter had a son my age. David and I were great friends. David was killed in a car crash our kindergarten year. I don’t remember many of the details surrounding the accident. I only know his mother, my babysitter, was driving and I that my mom had to make other arrangements for my brother and me. Later when I was around 12, Melissa, Missy as I called her, died of Ryes Syndrome a rare disease that was caused by children taking aspirin. We had met at church and became close friends. And she and her brother played with Chad and I often. In high school I lost my friend Mike to a car accident my senior year. We were in the same 4-H group. We sat together in art class. He was over at our house frequently and we were close. After visiting his girlfriend’s home one weekend night he fell asleep at the wheel and ran off the road straight into a tree. Then there was my best friend Jill who I lost when I was in my early 30’s.
I never had trouble making friends. I had learned in my early years how to ask questions and keep conversations going and find common interests that made making friends easy for me. But 33 years of ministry have taken their toll. My husband and I have moved 6 times over these last years. As I write this, I realize that 6 may not seem like a large number but what started out as easy for me has become harder and harder until now it seems like a mountain, I am unable to climb. In our first appointments I made friends with other mothers, and we connected due to our children. As the kids grew, I made some acquaintances at my childrens schools. I had the most friends at our 4th church. I loved that community and the church. There were a lot of women my age and there were many kids for my children to play with. I had good friends there. Until we moved that is. My husband and I believe in stepping back and giving the new pastor and family plenty of room to connect with the church members without our being in the way. And so those friendships became a Christmas card once a year. By now we have a whole pile of cards that we mail out for the holidays. All that is left of my friendships.
After moving to the last congregation that my husband served, I honestly didn’t have the strength to invest in people I knew I would be leaving.
In her book, “Learning to walk in the Dark” Barbara Brown Taylor stated that when she waited tables as a college student, she was always surprised at what people were willing to tell a stranger during her long shifts into the night. She said when she became a priest, she was surprised at what they would confess to her even though she did not know them. She called herself the resident stranger. Kurt and I discussed how as a clergy couple we have become resident strangers. We are here and available to our church family, but they seem to understand far better than we that this is more of a contractual relationship than a true friendship. Those relationships are inherently one sided.
As a professional counselor in private practice my clients and I too have a one-sided relationship and for them I am a “resident stranger.” My job, literally, is to be interested in their lives and to help them sort through and process all that life has thrown their way. Although, many of my client’s earnestly do care for me and are interested in my life, my Code of Ethic’s reminds me to keep the professional boundary in place. Adding to a sense of isolation.
I do have several friends all over the country who are just a phone call away. I cherish each of them. My husband, Kurt is my best friend and I am thankful to be on this journey with such a faithful and true companion.
In life it seems, you take the good with the bad. I would be remiss if I did not point out that there has been some good with what I fear is a litany of bad. My intention is not to illicit pity or sadness for my situation it is simply to help me to better understand the fullness of my life’s picture. As Christians we are taught to focus on the blessings. See the cup half full. Accept the challenges and rise to the occasion so that our struggle might be helpful to others. It can feel wrong, and guilt can accompany an honest look at the negative events of life. So, I am simply saying, things happened that were hard, and I must acknowledge them lest my story be only true in part. Allowing the fullness of my story, the eyes wide open version of my life to surface has been both painful and liberating. It requires grief, unrealized in its time, buried and ignored to finally emerge. It feels a bit awkward and self-indulgent to be saddened now by events of so long ago. And yet, it feels as necessary as anything I have ever done. Glossing over loss will no longer be part of my faith experience. From now on, I will feel my feelings including losses as they come, acknowledging the loss and then in my own time, I will move forward knowing that although changed, I am ok.
Happy Birthday Jill! I am forever thankful for the time we had together!