Day 276 ~ BFF

October 3, 2014

My Instead: I visited the grave of my childhood best friend Beth on her 59th birthday.

I lost my best friend Beth when she was 14 years old. Leukemia. I was 17 at the time. It’s coming up on 45 years ago on November 12th. I spent SO much of my childhood with Beth. And now I have to remind myself that she lived. She was here.

When Beth died, I was so sad. I remember feeling that I would NEVER be happy again. But I have been. When Beth died, I often dreamt that she was alive again...I was ELATED! Now it’s been decades since I’ve dreamt about her. When Beth died, I thought of her often. Now I hardly ever think of her unless I’m recapping my childhood to someone new.

In my defense, I do think of Beth every October 3^rd, her birthday, and every November 12^th, the day she died. So today was October 3^rd!  The cemetery was sort of on my way home from Fairview Heights if I took the Green Mount Road route. I've stopped by her grave now and then throughout the years, but today was her birthday! I wanted to visit her today. It was very chilly, windy and dreary…really not a day for cemetery stopping. But I had to do this.

Beth’s gravestone is easy to find…right off one of the main arteries within the cemetery. And it is relatively close to my dad’s. As I knelt by her stone, my head became flooded with thoughts of Beth. She would be 59 now. What would she have done during those lost years? What would she be like now? Would we have been close? Would our friendship have faded like my memory of her had? My last thought…why her? I’ve had 45 more years of this life than she had. Why me?

My thoughts quieted down as I left a shiny 2014 penny on her stone…something from the present. Our past has passed.

Is this what happens when we pass on from this life? Does everyone’s memory of us gradually get tucked away? Yes, but not tossed away! “Who we were” will be recalled at times...at least until no one is left from our past, our life. Then we are finally obliterated...from this life. 

Here’s the good new! SO WHAT! Our new life is where it’s at! And we’re all on that path...remembered or obliterated...doesn’t matter.