Monthly Archive for August, 2006

There is a chance, as I have no experience with it, that I don’t understand the afterlife very well. And there is a chance (who knows?) that we might all turn into clouds when we die.

So I rode my bike up to a park near the river today, where I knew no one would be, and I talked to the first cloud I saw. I thought that maybe the cloud might be Shirley.

I told Shirley that I was sorry that she died. Well – no – not that I was sorry that she died. One of the first things Shirley told me was that she prayed to die. So I don’t wish that she lived any longer than she did. I am sorry that she had to live like she did for the last years of her life. I’m sorry I didn’t visit her before she died. I’m sorry I stopped thinking about her. I’m sorry I left her in her suffering as soon as I was done with mine. That I felt I had to ignore her suffering in order to forget about mine. I’m sorry about how she had to die.

I met Shirley a little less than a year ago in the chemo room. I don’t mean to go into a long description of Shirley, but I will say that I half expect her obituary to say that she was born a princess of some far-off, beautiful nation, and that she gave it up to come to the States and have lung cancer so that she could be here to cheer me up when I came to treatments. She would tell me she loved me every time I saw her. She would always be hooked up to a machine, no matter what day it was, and she’d always ask how I felt.

I remember Shirley once talked about how she wanted her funeral to be one big party. That we should prop her body up in the coffin and I’d play piano and we’d all dance around like it was New Year’s Eve and she was Times Square. And that nobody would be sad. I told her I’d play, but that I ain’t propping nobody’s body up in no coffin. And now I see that I’ll also be sad at her funeral. So I guess her funeral will be nothing like she wanted it to be.

Shirley had already been in chemo for months, probably months and months, by the time I got there. She’s already been through plenty of suffering. And I believe she’d worked in a hospital for most of her life, if I remember correctly. Either way, she could recognize a scared, anxious kid when she saw one. I’d bet that’s why she started talking to me in the first place.

She always seemed so much more in control of herself than I felt. She was always so straight-forward about her pain, and her emotions. She survived it so much better than me. It seems strange that she’s died and I’m the one people call a survivor. How can that be?

My nurse wrote me on Friday to tell me that she’d gone into the hospital and that things didn’t look good. She thought Shirley would like me to know. I meant to go see her, but I never learned her last name and I didn’t know how I’d find her. I guess I probably could have found her. And yesterday I got caught up with a million less important things. I called today and as how she was. She died this morning. Her body just shut down. I wish I’d gone to see her. I wish I had done that.

But the nurses say she had already started to go by the weekend, and I think they mean for that to make me feel better, which is nice of them. But I still wish I’d gone. If she wasn’t lucid, then maybe more for me than for her. I miss my friend Shirley. But these are the sorts of things you realize too late sometimes.

Whatever happens when we die, if we turn into clouds, or stars, or angels…whatever it is, Shirley will know her way around it by the time I get there. She’ll recognize the scared little kid that’s new to the place and maybe she’ll cheer me up again. It’s a nice thought.