Almost exactly a year ago, I sat in a Starbucks in New York catching up with my old friend Miriam. My summer had been challenging, my long awaited eight weeks of temporary empty nesting interrupted by frequent trips out east to help my mother recuperate from injuries sustained in a May car accident. Miriam had faced plenty of her own challenges, but her mother was alive, vital, intact. Pitching in, quite often actually, to drive my mom around when my brother and I could not be there.
As we sat in Starbucks that morning a year ago, I received a hideous email from my daughter's camp, informing me that a boy, the same age as my daughter, had drowned the night before. It stopped me dead in my tracks, that email; I read it over several times, enlarging the print to make sure I had not imagined the horrific news. My daughter, as far as I knew, was fine. Everybody in my life -- and Miriam's -- that morning was fine, her mother, even my mother -- as fine as could be compared to that boy and his parents, whose world had just, no doubt, been shattered.
What a difference a year makes. My daughter called the other day from camp, anticipating with a good degree of dread the anniversary of the boy's drowning. She was scheduled, that day, to lead her somewhat reluctant campers into the lake, the ones who were always afraid. My daughter, by no means an avid swimmer but certainly not afraid of the water, felt paralyzed. She did not know how she'd go in the water, that same water that had taken a boy she knew on that awful day. She did not know how she'd escape the memories of that night, still vivid in her mind. The agonizing hours that passed between the time she and her friends had been herded back to their cabin and the time when they were finally given the news. The feelings of shock and loss and total disbelief that something like this could happen to one of their own.
When we talked the other night, we spoke of how horrendous this anniversary would be for the boy's parents. How lucky she is to be enjoying another summer at camp, while this boy, and so many others, will never have that chance. We agreed that she would hold her head up and march those girls into the water, for the boy's sake, for his parents' sake, to remind herself that life goes on, and sometimes you have to keep going, no matter how daunting it seems.
Yes, what a difference a year makes. My friend Miriam spent most of the time during our Starbucks rendezvous listening to my tales of woe, about my mother and then, suddenly, about the tragedy at camp. Her mother was alive and unbroken and, as far as we were both concerned, on the path to living forever. Certainly not anywhere near the point of illness or death. Not in our wildest nightmares.
Etti, my friend's mother, died last night, after a valiant battle with lung cancer and chemo induced infections. As unlikely as it seemed a year ago, Etti is gone; my mother, for whom everything seemed so bleak last July, is short but relatively healed, and camp, so shaken in the summer of 2011, is once again in session. Not as if nothing had ever happened, but in spite of everything that has happened. For those who have loved Etti and for whom her loss is staggering, life will stop dead in its tracks for a while. It will seem, for a while, that things cannot go on, at least not in a way they always have. But, as gloomy as today seems, Etti's loved ones will heal and move forward, as she would have wanted and expected them to do.
This morning, I am reeling, from the news -- albeit expected -- of Etti's passing. From much smaller losses, like the fact that I missed a phone call from my daughter at camp last night. It would have been a good night for me to hear her voice, to remind me that life goes on, that people move on, and that we should never take for granted the people we love. I will head to New York on Friday to bid farewell to Etti and to give my old friend and her brother as much of a hug as I can offer, though I know neither my presence nor my embrace will do much to ease their pain.
On Saturday I will head to Michigan to retrieve my daughter and give her a big hug, although I am fairly certain she will not be as excited or as comforted to see me as I will be to see her. But I will be both thankful and optimistic. Thankful that my mother has regained her strength, thankful that my children are okay (to say happy would be a stretch, so we'll just go with okay), and optimistic that next summer will bring more good things to those I hold dear.
Goodbye dear Etti -- strong, funny, seemingly invincible, loving to the core. A true believer in YOLO. May we all continue on, learning from her example.
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