My Friend

I have a friend and she’s dying. Yes, it’s blunt and sounds cold because it is. That is the reality. It. Is. Not. Fair!  It is absolutely heartbreaking and overwhelming. She is a young mother of two boys who are the same ages as my boys. She is an amazing woman. She was a colligate tennis player, is incredibly smart, funny and strong. She has ALS. She is one of my dear friends. I’ve worked with, and admired her, for ten years now. She has many great qualities that I wish more people had. 

I don’t have many regrets in life, but I do regret putting off the opportunity to meet Sandy until after she had already been diagnosed and was feeling the effects of her terrible disease. We always had talked about a girl’s trip to meet up for a fun get-away. An opportunity for us to finally meet face-to-face. You see, we had become great friends by only talking over the phone for years. I first got to meet her and give her a hug in November 2014. By this time she was already in a wheelchair. We did make it out for an outing to the dentist, Starbucks and for eye brow threading while I was there. We were also joined by our bestie, Heather, who joined us from Florida. Sandy introduced us to the aka-awesome movie that is Pitch Perfect. We watched it twice in three days. The weekend was filled with learning, crying and laughing….lots of laughing.

It made for the sweetest memories. I headed home from that trip with hope that she would improve and fear that I would never see her again. Unfortunately I was only right about one of those things. She hasn’t gotten better. Her symptoms have only gotten worse. The good news is that I did get to see her again. I sure this will be the last time. Sometimes I wish I lived closer so that I could help and see her more. At the same time it’s difficult to see and comprehend. How do you make sense of her situation? It’s unfathomable. For me there are days and times I just put up a wall, push it out of my mind and try not to face the reality that this could happen to someone like Sandy. It means it could happen to anyone. That is a hard reality to face. When I do think about it, it’s hard to not breakdown and cry. This last two weeks as my visit has gotten closer to departure, I have found it much more difficult to ignore the imminent outcome. As a result of that, I’ve found it much harder to hold back the tears.

As I boarded the plane June 4th to fly from Phoenix to Charlotte during take-off the captain’s window came loose and opened. That meant the take-off was aborted and we headed back to the gate.  We sat on the tarmac and at the gate for a total of two hours. I ultimately missed my connection in Chicago by eight minutes. I was so angry. The next flight wasn’t until 9:30 pm. I tried to explain my situation to the ticket counter rep and couldn’t hold back the tears. I felt like every minute with Sandy was important. I was angry that an airline could be so dismissive to its passengers, as if everyone was either on business or vacation and would just have to deal with it.  I was especially mad because when I booked this flight I had options. Of course I felt like I let myself down and chose the wrong one. Lesson learned. Go with the airline that has more flight options to your final destination. Sandy, being the awesome, sweet, stubborn control freak that she is, realized I was going to be so late that Jennifer and Nolan wouldn’t be able to pick me up and ordered car service for me despite me telling her I was just going to grab a taxi.

It’s pretty difficult to describe my visit with her other than to say it was bitter sweet. As expected, our friend Heather had also joined us from Florida. Sandy is wearing a breathing mask now so it’s a bit difficult to hear and understand what she says. She has really cool technology that allows her eyes to pick letters from a flat panel computer screen and spell out and select words. It’s still a lot of work on her part but at least she knows we will understand exactly what she says. It is always so nice to see her, visit and help where we can. We always have a ton of laughs together. I say it’s bitter because it’s hard to see someone you care about going through what she is. It’s also terrifying to know that something could go wrong and there are a lot of machines that could potentially need to be utilized. 

Our big outing for this visit was a trip to the movie theater to see Pitch Perfect 2. Sandy is the one who introduced me to Pitch Perfect 1 and we’ve watched is several times together since. I honestly didn’t know if she would make it to the time it came out in theaters but she did and was excited to go. We got a van equipped with a ramp, got her ready and headed to the show. It was awesome. The movie was good but the experience of being able to take her and share in that together between the three of us (and technically her nurse to that came with) was what was awesome. I spent a lot of time looking at Sandy and appreciating the slight bit of happiness and escape that the movie offered. 

The hardest part about going is having to say goodbye. I don’t do well with goodbyes. Especially since I figured this time that it really could be the last time. I hope not…but it likely could be and I have to consider that. I gave her a head, a kiss on the forehead and told her I love her. I do. I told her she is an amazing friend, that I loved visiting, that she is a strong fighter, that I admire her and that I’m proud of her. Frankly, that’s all I could say before I felt like I ran out of the house. Saying goodbye meant I had to face reality again and think about the probable outcomes. I hope that I’m wrong and I pray for a miracle for her often. I can only leave the control to Heavenly Father and trust that everything will turn out alright. In the meantime, I continue to just feel selfless and that sometimes life isn’t fair.

Post written June 4-8, 2015.