#loss

Slipping away piece by piece

One of the last texts he sent me a few months ago read “miss you girl”. I smiled as I am long past my girly days, but in the palaces of his mind I was still the 20 something girl that once loved him. I didn’t know what to say to his text. Our story was decades ago, my life has been good since then and I couldn’t say I missed him in any particular way. I decided to answer that it was such a nice thing to say. It is nice to know someone is thinking about you and holds your memory dear. Not anymore as I’ve just learned he died two days ago. The fondness for me this man still carried is gone now. So are all his memories of our time together. The girl only he knew dies with him. I will still carry the memory of the man he was with me. For a while. It is a precious memory for me as he was one of the men that never hurt me or tried to take advantage of me in any way, and those are a rare breed.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of carrying the memory of people who are gone, friends, family, people that touched your life in some way. As I grow older the list of people whose memory I carry grows longer. While they’re still remembered, they’re not really dead, are they? It’s a responsibility you have, remembering faces, moments of joy or sadness you shared, laughs, quirks, the people they were. Especially those who are not survived by anyone, those who slipped away alone and barely noticed. As long as you live someone remembers that they once lived. It’s sad to think of all the pieces of you that die when someone close passes. There’s no one left to remember my weight as I lay against my mother’s breast. Barely anyone to remember my childhood. There are no witnesses left for various parts of my life. I am slipping away.

"casey-allen-8cg0rd8M5D0-unsplash.jpg" Photo by Casey Allen on Unsplash )

The time you got to spend with someone becomes more precious when the smell of death is in the air. Carrion eaters have been hovering over our family this year. They got a juicy morsel a few months back and now they circle at a distance, biding their time till they can sink their claws and beaks in what they see as their rightful prey. How long before another of us becomes a memory?

As I sat down to dump my sadness on the blockchain I realized I knew something was wrong with my friend. I’ve been through a lot lately and looking up a friend from 30 years ago was the farthest on my mind. Yet, maybe a week or two ago I checked his Facebook as some part of me had noticed he hadn’t been posting in a while. That part of me was my intuition, a trait that I’ve noticed is getting stronger lately, which is amazing, but also scary. Intuition works on a subconscious level, processing clues and information before the conscious mind gets aware of them. What we call gut feeling or instinct, as in a mother’s instinct, is mainly intuition. Things you cannot explain or want to share when you get a bad feeling. Right now, many in my family are clinging to hope, pray or wait for a miracle that might stave off the scavengers. I keep my mouth shut.

Since my friend who just died was a great Rolling Stones fan I will close this lament with a classic piece that was on the tape he made for me all those years ago.

Comments · 9

@riverflows(82)· 407d
You know, in the mood you're in, I think you'll like this one too. It's so old school Stones but off a recent album. My Dad played it for me in the months before he died... Massive stones fan.

I can't listen to it because I cry. I've been forcing myself to listen to his songs because it keeps him alive. But some... Nah I just lose my shit.

But we remember, remember, remember.

There's a sadness in dying through the death of memories but it's the way of things, innit?
@lizelle(79)· 407d
The most beautiful, profound piece of writing about loss that I have read in a very long while, if ever, @ladyrebecca!

The girl only he knew dies with him

I never put that into words, but that is how it is: many parts of us die with our loved ones.

As I grow older the list of people whose memory I carry grows longer. While they’re still remembered, they’re not really dead, are they?

Not really, and they don't get any older either.

There are no witnesses left for various parts of my life. I am slipping away.

So so true, I never thought of it that way. Excuse all the quotes, but I could not help it. You have an amazing way with words! I am so very sorry about your loss.
@ericvancewalton(81)· 407d
I'm sorry for your loss, Rebecca! There's been far too much of this in our circles in the past five years too. I never really gave much thought to memories of me passing along with those lost loved ones. My first real childhood girlfriend passed before the pandemic and I can remember how strange that felt to me.
@valued-customer(75)· 408d
I am sorry for your loss. It is something I am familiar with, that sense of our world releasing it's grip on us, one relationship at a time. I know several people that are caregivers for the elderly, and the isolation of the aged and infirm, particularly, is terrifying. The worst is those that have no family, have no dedicated advocates to pry into their circumstances and ensure their situation is copacetic. A 93 year old woman without children and mild dementia has a social circle consisting entirely of paid caregivers, because they are no longer able to get to social events, all their social circle have died, and they are trapped in their home without anyone to call.

I try to be sanguine, to be competent to face harsh reality so that my friends and neighbors can rely on me in any circumstances, but the empathy that underlies my obdurate demeanor threatens to burst through my surficial imperturbability, my tears of compassion through a floodgate. I suppress my personal fear of this happening to me, convince myself it is unlikely, but the prison of isolation of old age is a prospect fearful to contemplate, and the older I get the more terrible it seems to become, as my own childhood friends fall away, after my parents and extended family fell into their graves, only my children and neighbors I provide services to remain to guard me from such imprisonment when infirmity disarms me of my hammers and saws.

I truly hope to die with a hammer in hand, fighting on the field of battle against rot and decay that degrades the condition of the homes of the people I serve. When I must retire, when I no longer provide those services, those I serve will forget about me. I seek to leave a legacy in wood, stone, and steel behind, of good work that will long outlive me, that will improve the lives of people I have never met decades after I die. Eventually all memories of me will be gone, all my work will rot and decay, and the only legacy I will have is the ongoing civil society that I have slightly blessed by my existence. At least that will never die.

Thanks!
@mattclarke(71)· 408d
I've reached the age my Dad warned me about. I'll be at the shops and see a girl I know from school; except it's actually her daughter. Sorry about your friend. One of my mates just posted on Facebook that his grandmother died at 99. They're family friends and Mum used to go visit her. I reckon it's been at least 35 years since I saw her last, and still remember the kindness and patience of that woman. Imagine being so kind that the memory of it lasts decades. That's gotta be what winning looks like.
@holoz0r(78)· 408d
Gone doesn't always mean death, either. I have friends that I no longer speak to (for no reason other than drift, I guess) or have fallen out of contact with, and I still think of them often.

I'm certain they're probably still alive, but I can't help but wonder, who am I gone from, and do they miss me? I wouldn't even know unless they said something or told me.

That's why its always so important to tell people how you really feel. That's something I am becoming more and more comfortable with as I age and mature.
@afrikens(71)· 408d
The way death takes people who are so dear makes it shocking. Though it is inevitable but it would have been nicer if everyone knows their date of death so we can cling on ourselves the more before that time but it's not possible

Sorry about the loss of your friend
@owasco(73)· 408d
May he be rocking and rolling, wherever he is. xo
@deirdyweirdy(72)· 409d
That almost brought a tear to my eye. I’ve had similar thoughts myself lately, looking back at my life and realising that everyone who could bear witness to certain memories is gone.