HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
Sept. 29, 2005 As I sit in my room and mourn the recent death of my dearest friend, I begin to contemplate a realization of enormous proportion; death inevitably comes to us all. Yes, yes, I know….this is understood by the simplest of human minds but I myself have never understood it the way that I understand it now….now that my friend met with her untimely death. I reminisce to an age of mine some 20 years ago and search my soul to remember my deepest feelings and understanding of the before mentioned truth. When I do this, I realize that my perception of mortality was no where near as profound as it is now. At 18 years of age, well, death was something that happened to other people…NOT ME. It is not that I thought that I would not someday meet my demise, it was just that I felt somehow untouchable at that age. When death did come close to me, which it did during a car accident at that age, I did not think twice about my survival, I merely shrugged my shoulders and moved on. In my mind, I somehow believed that I was meant to live. At 25 years of age, when life as a single mother with no formal education seemed too difficult to overcome, I contemplated suicide and went down a path of self-destruction actually hoping that I would die somehow without actually having to pull a trigger or swallow a pill. It didn’t happen and I once again survived myself staring down the barrel of death. Between the ages of 27 and 37 I worked in the medical field and I saw much death. Some of the people I did not know and some of the people I had bonded with. Some of the deaths that I saw hurt me deeply but at the same time not so deeply that I contemplated in any great detail what death meant to each and every one of us. During that time in my life, it seemed like a reasonable solution to sometimes-difficult equations and medically speaking a humane end. Now I know that this sounds ridiculously stupid on my part but I am really not an idiot, it is just that the reality that sometimes death is NOT a reasonable solution to a difficult equation had never really crossed my mind until recently. I realize now that in the past, when I did contemplate death, I thought of it in the respect of how someone else’s death effected me. Or even how my death would effect someone else but not until now have I contemplated to such a degree, how very final death is. It is amazing to me that I have skated through this life to be my age never really seeing how precious life is. I have spent 39 years of my life busying myself with tasks and accomplishments often times overlooking love and happiness. Often times overlooking the slightest of signals that friends and loved ones can send out when they need love and happiness which I could very well deliver for them. I have been too busy with the tasks of this life to tell some of my friends and family every single day how very much I love and appreciate them. It has not been that I did not feel like telling them, it is just that I have taken the actual state of life or living for granted. I never, ever, as long as I retain my life, want to do this again. My friend who passed on April 26th this year, in life and in death, brought joy, love and lessons to everyone she ever met. She always had time to lend an ear, she always told everyone she knew that she loved them, she always had hugs with each hello and each goodbye, she always found the brightest point that person had and would flip the switch on high regularly, she always wiped up the tears when anyone cried. No, there was not a single showing mean bone in her body. She lived meekly, she was disabled with only a small disability check each month to support herself, her grown fully dependant, non-working 21 year old daughter and any stray animal that was hungry or in need of medical treatment. Still with all of the ways that most of us would find to say that we could not afford to do many things with the above mentioned expenses, she consistently found ways to purchase small items from local stores to give to friends just to let them know that she was thinking of them. About one year ago, an overwhelming feeling came over me. I couldn’t really discern why I got this impression but something told me to let Ellen know how much I loved and appreciated her. In retrospect, I think the feeling should have come much sooner than it did as I had known her for 6 years by that time but nevertheless, the feeling came when it did and I heeded it. I picked up the phone to call Ellen, as I had so very many times before, but this time, there were only two things I wanted to say. When I heard her voice on the other end of the phone say hello, I told her. “Ellen, I just called because I want you to know how beautiful you are and that I love you.” Sadly enough, after she chuckled, she told me that she didn’t think that anyone had ever told her that she was beautiful. After that conversation, I continued to tell her on a regular basis that I loved her and thought that she was the most beautiful person this earth had ever been blessed with. For this, I am glad. I have no regrets for not having told her enough that I loved her or how very much she was appreciated. I also frequently told her that I needed her in my life and that she was not, under any circumstance allowed to leave me. When it was time for me to get married last year, even though feathers were ruffled within my own family, she was my maid of honor. And, less than 24 hours before Ellen’s’ death, another overwhelming feeling came over me. I didn’t have a clue what it was but it was so strong that it frightened me. It was a very bad feeling. I called the people closest to me, her included, to make sure they were alright. Everyone that I called asked me what it was that I was feeling but I didn’t know how to explain it and I merely responded with that I felt like something terrible was going to happen. My dog began acting more strange than I had every seen. I even told my daughter that I thought he must be nearing his end as he would not get off the ground when called. Neither one of us had ever seen that old dog act like that before. Something definitely felt wrong to all of us. The next day at 1230 p.m. the phone rang. My daughter answered it and within seconds I heard my daughters’ feet pounding their way to my bedroom door where I sat on my bed paying bills. “Mommy!” she yelled “Ellen’s dead! Jessica said she is so blue!” I shot up from the bed and in bare feet and a short nightgown bolted out of my back door running as fast as my feet could take me across the alley and next door to my best friend and neighbors home. During the few seconds that it took me to get to Ellen’s home, five million thoughts went through my head. Although I had heard my daughter say that she was dead, for some strange reason, the one thing that stuck in my head was that she was “blue” and anyone in the medical field will understand this next part; all I could think about was what I was going to do to make her pink again. I could do it. I had done it before and come hell or high water, I was not going to let my Ellen die!!…it was a mistake and I was going to fix the mistake….until…..until I got to her front door and saw the big burly EMS guys blocking the doorway and standing still. Quickly I got their attention and asked them the most ignorant question I think that I have ever asked: “Did you do CPR?” The larger of the three men turned to me and responded “it’s too late”. “What do you mean it’s too late?” I questioned, my mind refusing to accept any reasoning. “She’s been dead too long, her pupils are fixed and dilated” he emotionlessly responded. My body began shaking all over, my hands cupped over my face to cover the evidence of the enormous pain that struck me at that very moment. My legs felt weak and I found a chair beside me and sat burying my face in my own lap. As the EMS employees filtered out from the front room where they found her, I made my way in. I found Ellen in her chair at her computer desk, leaning back with her head down, arms down on either side of the arm rests and her legs splayed. Blood had pooled to her fingertips and surprisingly, her color was only pasty white….not blue. Alone with her I spoke. I told her one last time how very much she meant to me and how much I loved her. I kissed her forehead and said goodbye. It was only days later, after all of the plans had been made and everyone had been notified, that I had time to think; time to think about her death. We had been so close that it felt as though she was an extension of myself. Now the extension that had developed and grown for so many years was gone. As I thought about this, I realized that most people have these extensions to different degrees and to different people. Some of them fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives, daughters and sons and in cases like my own, the very best of friends. But in any case the attachments are there. It is sad to say but I guess that I have to admit that I have never had an attachment that was so deep until I met Ellen. And it may very well be that type of attachment that brings us from “there to here”. “There” being the place where death is not a threat but merely something sad and temporarily tragic and “here” being the place where mortality is real and life and death have their proper perspective placed on them, where death is final and where when you love so deeply anyone, the loss of that person causes some sort of monumental self exploration that leads to a revelation. Thank you Ellen, in death as in life you have taught me something new and important today. I miss you so deeply that mere words would do no justice. ------------ Email Christi Anderson Palmeri: cpalmeri@knology.net Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
