In search of my feelings

A close friend died on the 4th of July.  She and I were close during our university days in Manila.  Then I got married and had a child, which she disapproved, but she loved me anyway and doted on my daughter.  In fact she was among the first of my friends to come see me after I had Nicole.

And even as life happened, we stayed in touch. We saw each other often when we worked in Makati and then she moved to Hawaii and got married.  When I came to the US, I stayed with her when a friend had her destination wedding in Arizona.  She introduced me to her daughter and we went up to Sedona.  In 2009 she came to New York and we took photos at Central Park together. She was a professional photographer and owned one of the more popular event and wedding photographers in the Phoenix area.

The thing with these relationships is that you may be miles apart from each other but there's always a connection that when you see each other with 5 or 10 year gaps in between, you always start your conversations as though you were picking it up from half a minute ago. 

In 2018 she wrote that she had been diagnosed with leukemia and that she was going through chemo.  I got the news from their annual newsletter tucked in their Christmas card.  It was a card that I grabbed with the mail on the way to the airport and didn't get to read until I was packing for my return trip.  I immediately called her and as usual, she was optimistic and cheerful.  Last Christmas, as my family and I were heading out to our winter ski trip, I ripped open their Christmas card where she wrote an update that she was responding well to the treatments.  She had joked that she was back to her weight during our uni days and I joked that for that was 50 pound ago.  Then she asked about Paris and if it was safe for a first time traveler. 

Back in those days when I enjoyed sharing my travel photos on Facebook, she would always be the first to send me a note of how she 'lives vicariously' through my posts.  I've always urged her to join me in my travels so this time when she said she wanted to have a mother-daughter trip to Paris, I was overjoyed.  Definitely, Paris is safe and in fact, it is the first city in Europe I went with my own Nicole. It was a long exchange and she was very excited about it. Then before we ended the conversation she promised she'd keep me updated on their plans.

On 30 June I sent a a chat message about my concerns regarding the increasing rate of corona virus infections in Arizona. Having just suffered becoming the first hotspot for the pandemic a few months ago, I warned her to stay isolated and wear a mask when she needed to go out.  I got a thumbs up reply. Something she usually did when she was busy and would reply with a longer email next time she had time.

Then I learned she died on 4th July.

It feels strange to think she's gone.  I am seeking that transition of a light slowly burning out. I feel like a part of my life was yanked out and yet I couldn't feel it.  I couldn't grieve and haven't grieved. Life has been busy - with travel and the continued work from home arrangement, it feels like days blend into each other in fast forward mode.

When I learned that my friend had passed away, I felt a tinge of guilt and betrayal that I wasn't informed of her failing health.  Would I have traveled to see her? Probably not, or definitely not with covid. Was that why she didn't let me know? But I had the chance the whole of last year to come see her and didn't. Even as I did board a plane and was away literally every month. Was the downward turn of her health o swift that they were also caught unaware? Again, why didn't I know? Was it because I also stopped reading posts on Facebook?

And still I couldn't grieve.  She was one of my closest friends and until now I haven't dug deep inside of me enough to cry.  But does crying equal grieving? Like those old fashioned wakes back home when they paid professional cryers - did I need to shed tears to grieve?

Then someone sent me an article in Psychology Today that talks about 'depersonalization disorder'.  It is defined as the experience of feeling unreal, detached, and often inability to feel emotion.  It adds that people go through this emotional numbness as coping mechanism for pain that is too traumatic and that we learn to take on this protective reflex as a conscious choice.

My friend further explained that having gone through the ups and downs of being in the middle of a pandemic in its own hotspot can create such trauma that we are unaware of but this affects our mental and emotional health far beyond what we would normally understand.  And that event being so recent and so heavily impactful, another 'blow' such as my friend's sudden demise sends me to dig deeper to protect myself emotionally. The usual way people do this is either to fight, flight or freeze and unconsciously, I have oped to freeze my feelings, and to get on with life.

In learning this I feel have also used this emotional detachment in every other aspect of my life lately where I would normally put so much more effort to make perfect.  And yet, true enough, though I never vocalize it, in my head, the general attitude has become : go fuck it.  I'll do my best and if that's not good enough then yes, fuck off. Love, work, life and even in arranging those weekly flowers I bring in to the apartment.  If it's not good enough for anyone else, I don't care.

Generally, I think, not giving a damn it is a good way to live life.  Who measures up to anyone's expectations anyway? 

But then I urge myself just one more time to go back and dig deep into my heart and my soul because without that chance to grieve for the loss of that beautiful person whose smile and laughter filled my days as it echoed along the halls of De La Salle University's Comm Arts Building, whose many life and love advice I've followed, then I am failing to move forward from this moment.  I need to give myself a chance to be human for her - to be vulnerable, allow my heart to open, feel pain, linger in the hurt and then heal. I stare out the window, at the New York summer so similar to what we shared in Phoenix and in Manila. I recall all my memories of her, now forever gone. And still, the tears aren't there. My heart and soul remains in denial

For Lilet.

M
Vienna