standing with hope

by natalie tousley

My best friend’s dog died a few weeks ago. As random and insignificant as that may sound, it was actually a harder event to process than it should have been.  Everything about the dog’s death was wrong: 1) she wasn’t old  2) she died of heart failure and 3) I found out via Facebook, which was the hardest of the three for me. 

To say that my best friend loved her dog would be both the absolute truth and the understatement of the year; she was one of those people who treated her dog like she was human. Given that fact, I always expected that when Arbor (the dog’s unfortunate name for any Ohio State fan) finally passed away I would have been called upon for a lengthy, emotional conversation that would have probably ended with me heading down south for the weekend. What I never envisioned, however, was that I would find out about this should-have-been monumental life event via Facebook because my best friend and I haven’t spoken in years (at the time of this writing my friend and I haven’t spoken in four years and twenty-two days).

I wish I could say that we grew apart, that time and distance proved to be too much for us. I wish I could say that we’re both happy and healthy in our lives regardless of the broken relationship. I wish I could say that we catch up on the holidays when she’s back in town or that we text every couple of years to an old number, wondering if it’s still in service. Honestly, I’d even settle for a storyline where we had a huge falling out, spread terrible lies about each other and vowed to never speak again because at least that ending could be rewritten once we’d gotten over ourselves. But no. Trisha and I haven’t spoken in years, not because of any fault in our relationship, but because Trisha is dead. And wish as I might- that’s an ending that can’t be rewritten.

Every year, for as long as I can remember, I’ve made a New Year’s resolution. Somewhere around a decade ago, I allowed myself to throw out the preconceived idea of what these resolutions should look like based upon what everyone else was doing. I decided that I was going to focus on an area of my life that I felt needed attention. I begin this process mid-year with prayer and reflection and overtime I narrow everything down to one area of focus that I will spend a set number of time working on. Trust me when I say that these resolutions have been all over the place! Perhaps I will post about them at some point. All that is to say, this past year I decided that I was going to access my Facebook memories tab every day and do three things: 1) read all of my old posts regardless of how ridiculous they were  2) keep the ones that resonated and 3) delete the ones that didn’t.

At the beginning of the year I was expecting this to be just a massive purge of old, immature thoughts from decades past, but I have been surprised by how many posts have made me take pause and reminisce over the life experiences that I’ve grown through. One of those moments happened just days before Arbor died when I re-read a post about an experience I had at my son’s school…

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November 2022

Not the best picture because the paintings aren’t mine and I didn’t want to move them but bear with me…

Two years ago I lost my best friend unexpectedly. Turns out “just shy of 40” isn’t too young to have an undiagnosed heart arrhythmia. She was an artist, among other things, and before her death she got really, really into paint-and-pour designs (I think there were 30 or so paintings on display at her funeral type of “really into it”). She was also really, really into word art and would frequently send me inspirational quotes just to rile me up and get a laugh out of my inevitable rants on whatever topic she chose to send me. She frequently brought light into my darkness and laughter to my cynicism but in her words, “I digress”.

I wrote the following last night and although I’ve made it a point to never share private thoughts on fb, tonight is a first time for everything…

11/1/22

10:02pm

After silently missing my friend hard for the past couple of weeks, I was not at all prepared to walk into the high school art room and be reminded of a life I haven’t seen in years. In a matter of seconds I was back in her garage looking at her work and I swear I knew, I just knew that if I turned around I would see her and the past two years would be some twisted mistake. Her presence was that visceral (and although there is a cognitive explanation for it I won’t write it here). To no one’s surprise, she wasn’t there when I looked but in her place was a chair with a quote…“Don’t cry because it’s over”. 

Well Trisha, I didn’t. I didn’t cry all throughout my different classes today. I didn’t cry through dinner, or homework, or dishes, or car rides, or cleaning, or preparing for tomorrow or the boys’ bedtime routines. I didn’t cry, not once. But I’m crying now. Not because it’s over, but because it ended too d—n fast. 

I’m crying because your death was unexpected and because our last conversation was perfect.
I’m crying because I just read our last text thread and it started with a silly word-art picture about rainbow gel pens and I saved it on my phone because it was just like you to write some fluff about “finding a rainbow in a sea of blues and blacks”.
I’m crying because too much has happened since you left and because in some weird way, I think you know all about it already so I don’t have to waste my time asking God to tell you. I’m crying because you’re the person I would process life with and you’re not here and I haven’t learned how to process things alone yet.
I’m crying because your mom had to say things to me that no mother should ever have to tell her daughters best friend, and I’m crying because I feel terrible that I haven’t gone to see your parents in awhile because life got too busy and because sometimes being with them makes your death too real and not being reminded that you’re gone for the rest of my life is easier.
And now I’m crying because that last sentence makes me feel selfish.

I’m crying because your dog laid by your body for two days waiting for you to wake up and you never did (and I’m laughing because she’s gained so much weight and I can picture your reaction to that perfectly).

I’m crying because I’m angry, and I’m crying because IT HURTS. The loss, the memories. It hurt then and it hurts now.

And finally, I’m crying because in the miracle of all miracles- I know I’ll see you again. And I’m snort-laugh/crying because when that day comes I imagine you’ll be standing calmly with a smile and I’ll be dramatic AF- because that’s who we are and that’s how we work.

I’m crying because I miss you,and missing you makes me think of the other people, places and things that I miss and the spiral downward sucks. But I won’t spiral downward for long, just tonight…and maybe tomorrow if I don’t get called into work; but I won’t spiral forever because I have responsibilities and because through it all, against all odds, God has worked even this for my good. But tonight: I’m spiraling tonight and there’s not a dang thing you can do about it because you’re still gone and it still hurts.

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To be continued…