Still We Live

Sometimes I will meet someone and there’s just something about them that I feel connected to. They have a quality that signals to me “this is one of my people” and I find myself drawn to them. I love nothing more than having conversations and getting to know who people really are, so it usually doesn’t take me very long to find out that they have experienced a deep, life-altering loss in some capacity. It can be any variety, but more often than seems statistically probable in my experience, it’s the loss of a dad and everything that comes along with that.

Each time this happens, it clicks for me that the reason I am drawn to this person is because we are connected by a shared experience we didn’t even know we had. Neither of us lived exactly the same event, or even knew each other at the time it happened; but once we went through it, we were changed in a way that may only be visible to other members in our unspoken circle.

So what is it that I see in them? I don’t fully know. Perhaps they appear softer than others. Or maybe it’s less of a softness, and more of a weight. Like passing on a hike and where you would normally give a polite nod and move on, you find yourself saying “hello traveler, I see you’re carrying a heavy bag that looks a bit like mine. Shall we set them down and unpack what’s inside?”

Though there is both a softness and a weight, neither of those are *it.* As I reflect on this, I believe the thing that initially stands out is closer to… tenacity. There’s a little extra life to make up for what was taken away, a determination to press on and keep living—to make the most of it, despite the edge that will always be there.

This has happened enough times that I feel like I need to have a specific way to talk about it. I have used the word “endearing” to describe people that have this quality, but that’s not quite right and too broad. I could borrow from Stephen King and say they have the Shine, or from the movie Split and say they are Pure. But no, if what I can sense is their courage and persistence in the face of these burdens, I think it’s fair to say the subtle element they contain is fire.

The ones with fire are the ones who life hasn’t always been kind to for one reason or another, yet still they live and even love it. They are my people.

I suppose I’m writing all of this because on April 10th, I lost one of my people. I didn’t get very much time with him in the grand scheme of things—perhaps not enough to justifiably feel the level of grief I do—but in the time that we did have, I saw his fire.

He started a new job at our organization two weeks before I did, and I will never forget our first interaction—he came up to me and said “I just started too, we can be newbies together!” Our friendship was established in that moment, and only grew from there. He welcomed me, made me feel like I was genuinely a part of things, and ultimately became my go-to. He was who I sought out when I needed someone to help carry donations, or wanted company on a trip to the food pantry, or any of the other assorted adventures that regularly popped up.

We ate lunch together every day, and we talked—it was over lunch that the fire I sensed was confirmed and I learned the depth of the losses he had suffered. Over lunch I learned that our dad’s had died within days of each other the same year, giving us the opportunity to support each other on the anniversaries of those deaths in a very unique way. Over lunch I learned that his grief and struggles were even greater than that, yet still he lived and even loved it.

I saw that fire in him as over lunch we also told funny stories, shared memes, swapped drama, crafted inside jokes. Over lunch we laughed, a lot. Usually there were several of us who ate together, but on the days that it was just the two of us we would have what we dubbed “High Tea.” This entailed pouring our flavored sparkling waters into these tiny alcohol glasses that we gleefully discovered in a donation box, and toasting each other. It was a prestigious event that inspired others to ask “what the heck are you guys doing?” to which we proudly exclaimed “High Tea!”

Scattered across my desk are little tokens of the ways we turned work into fun—the puppet named Franklin who is missing a nose, the book of unsolved crimes, the fruit snacks, the swag bag, the suggestion box trash can, the can coozie he brought back from vacation for me that says “so much shade to throw.” From sending each other daily snapchats to bonding over our shared love of The Wizard of Oz to cracking each other up while going through the weird stuff people donated (or left on the street)… we both chose to make the most of our time. He was my work bestie all the way, and I miss him.

It’s hard to look at the place where his desk was, the chair he sat in for lunch, the space we crossed to show each other designs and bounce ideas. I can’t bring myself to eat at the table outside, where we shared one last beautiful lighthearted day before I would never see him again. I’m surrounded by echoes that only serve to remind me how hollow it is without him.

Losing someone I had that connection with so young, so suddenly, and so permanently has been difficult to process. Maybe because we are the ones who press on and keep living, and it is so utterly unfair that his ability to do that was stolen. I’ve never suffered the death of a friend, let alone one of my people, so I’m experiencing a new strain of grief. It breaks my heart and makes me angry and sometimes it feels like the weight of it will suffocate my own fire. There are times when I want to scream at the sky and tear apart my desk and collapse into the numbness of despair with no plan to return.

I have to move forward, yet it feels like my feet are miles past my mind. They shuffle through the motions, getting more distant every day. I don’t know if or when the part that’s me will catch up. I can keep living, but the question becomes can I keep loving it?

In the end, I guess that’s the point. I can and I will, no matter how long it takes. Because he did. For him and for every other person I’ve connected with who has been through trials that inspire life to burn inside them in defiance of the pain. It’s overwhelming, it’s heavy, and it feels impossible sometimes.

Yet still I live, and even love it.