Come, As You Are, As You Were, As I Want You To Be, As A Friend, As A Friend, As A Known Memory

--"Come As You Are", Nirvana

I just received an e-mail from my friend Jennifer's brother saying that his family will be having a somewhat good-sized get-together in May. It will be to commemorate five years since she died and to once again celebrate the person she was in life. They're telling me I should come, but not only that, to say a few words--actually, some pretty specific words.

If it wasn't bad enough it completely slipped my mind that it'll be five years May 14th, I'm thinking about not going. They want me to read the eulogy/speech I gave at her funeral. It's the last thing I thought I'd have to read again. I mean--yes, it's one of the most heartfelt and honest things I've written, but those kinds of things should only ever have to be written or read once. To me, it would feel like we were burying her a second time and it was bad enough for me letting go of her during the first go-around. I know why they're doing it, because it's easier to remember her with something nice that's already mapped out rather than trying to communicate their feelings all over again. Yet to me that seems kind of a cop-out. I was glad to read it the first time because it was frankly one of the only ways I could deal with my grief, but it was for me one of those one-and-done kind of projects. It put my grief in a very secure place where I didn't have to stumble over it in everyday life. Now they're asking me to bring it out of the closet and put it in the forefront of my mind again.

I don't want to do it. Yes, it'll be nice for her family and, yes, I kind of feel obligated because Jennifer was such a lovely person who deserves to be remembered as long as possible. But I'd rather remember how great it was to know her in life and not how frighteningly real it was to visit her in the hospital while she was dying, to hear that she had died less than twelve hours after I had visited her last, to have to read that horrible eulogy I had written when all I wanted to do was block the memory of her being dead away. I don't want to celebrate the fifth anniversary of her being dead. I want to go on oblivious to the fact she had to die at all.

I just think there should be a respect for a person once they've passed. There should be a dignity in death. The people left alive shouldn't be dredging up the fact she's dead as an excuse to come together. I think the time for memorial has come and gone. Let the mourning cease at last. I don't know--maybe I would see things differently if I were actually her family. Maybe this is something they need to do because they don't feel like the have closure with their daughter. I made my peace with her death a long time ago, though. I don't need to muddy the waters again at all. If I did believe in an afterlife, I think what they're planning to do to be the closest thing to pull her away from that. I'd like to believe she's somewhere happy and to be reminded of all the sadness she left behind in the days after she died isn't right. She should continue to be happy wherever she is and whatever she is. I think we all should be happy and done with being sad for her.

Also, I just know if I do it this time it'll be some kind of tradition. I don't want to be coming back every five years to relive what had to be one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. Nobody my age at that time should have ever died--certainly not anyone I knew. Twenty-seven is the prime of life. It's not a time to have it all end for you. Nobody deserves that. Nobody's friends or family deserves to be put through that kind of misery. It's not something to celebrate.

If I had my way, I would probably just go alone to the cemetery on May 14th. I'd spend maybe fifteen or twenty minutes talking to her and that would be that. I've been horrible not visiting her enough, but cemeteries and the ilk scare the hell out of me. I don't like being reminded of death.

Yet I'll probably go.

I'll probably end up reading the stinking eulogy again anyway.

I'll probably end up just missing her all over again.

Then it'll probably take another good month or so like last time to get myself straight again.

Eh. She's still my friend. What's the use of being alive if you can't be sad for those who aren't fortunate to be with us? Maybe that's better than being numb to it all. Maybe that's better than trying to forget, forget, forget because when you remember all you remember is all that suffering in the last few months. Maybe it'll be good to be around people who laughed with her also. Maybe that way you might remember all the happy times too.

People should never die. They just shouldn't.

----

The eulogy:

Too many times we forget the people that are important to us. Too many times we take the people we care about for granted. Too many times we simply fail to recognize the special individuals who give value and substance to our lives. Too many times.

I have always been awestruck by the number of great men and women whose lives have left an indelible mark on the temper of their own age. These individuals, whose reservoir of character, whose passionate actions, have left memories for both their friends and family at home, as well as the world at large deserve special attention. They deserve the daily accolades of any great hero, reaffirming their worth to us so that they may know how truly revered they really are. Sadly, many never gain the praise they so richly are due. Sadly, many pass away never knowing the merits of their achievements nor the strong connections they have forged with so many around them. We are gathered here today---family and friends---not to mourn or grieve the loss of one so dear to us as was Jennifer---but to praise her, to eulogize her for the vast achievements she most certainly attained. To list her many accomplishments would take me far too long to enumerate---and it would take me away from what it is I really want to say---it would take me away from what I truly feel in my mind and in my heart.

I didn’t know Jennifer too long--certainly not the years and decades some of you may have known her. But I think I knew her well enough to say she was a brave person. She was a dedicated person to whatever she set her mind to. I remember walking with her at the beach one day a few months after we had first met. We talked over all the plans we had for our lives and discussed the goals that we needed to hold ourselves to. She was planning to be an artist—either a painter or a sculptor because those are the passions she truly felt most expressed who she was. Yet she worried that her talent would not be up to par to accomplish her goals. I was just about to dole out some reassuring words when she seemed to solve her own problem. She told me that not everyone is born with the talent to grab their dreams. However, she said, everyone is born with the ability to work hard. I may have to work my ass off, but I’m not afraid of that. And she really wasn’t. She wasn’t afraid of who she wanted to become and what it would take to become that person in her mind. She wasn’t afraid of the sacrifices and the heartache pursuing her bliss would entail. She wasn’t afraid of anything.

She was the busiest person I ever met, which is probably why I still find myself wishing I had had more time to spend with her. Yet I can honestly say that I cherish each and every time I had the pleasure of being in her company. She was a joy to be with, always primed to disarm you with her gentle sense of humor and her affability. There are certain people that can light up a room. That’s not how I would describe Jen’s charisma. Her charm laid in how approachable she was. She never thought herself above anyone. She was beautiful to everyone around her, but not to herself. She always thought she looked rather plain. She was intelligent to everyone around her, but not to herself. She always thought she struggled to keep up in the conversation. She was a good person to everyone around, but not to herself. She always thought there was something more she could do when everybody else was telling her she already did too much. In an age when people seem content to just do enough she seemed only content when she had done too much, when she had given everything she had, and then some. She was just one of those people.

I’m not standing up here to canonize her, though. She was not a saint and she would be the first person to tell you that she wasn’t. She’d tell you that it was hard enough being a normal person and that living up to sainthood was not an ambition she was aspiring to. She often joked with me that she was sinful enough to keep people on their toes but not enough to cause the devil to take notice. Just when you thought you had her pegged as some type of goody-two-shoes, she’d surprise you. You’d get a call from her and she’d be calling from some bar in Phoenix when she was supposed to have been studying for finals. Or you’d be awakened at two-thirty in the morning with a knock on your door and the humorous tale of how she had had some date’s car towed for being a tad too forward on their last date. That Jen, she could really surprise you.

Even towards the end she never failed to surprise me. The manner in which she held onto the delicate humor about her condition will forever stand as a testament to her strength. She was not a quitter, but she knew when she had been beaten. And she accepted it with the grace and the pleasantness of an individual who was secure with the tally of her life. She knew she had done everything humanly possible with the time God had given her. She didn’t get to finish everything she had set out to accomplish, but she had at the very least set out on every task she had wanted to undertake. Not many of us can honestly say that even today. She knew there would be a legacy of a well-lived life that she could leave behind. She knew that the regrets she did possess were petty in nature—things like never having visited the fourteen countries she had jotted down in fourth grade, things like never kissing at least one movie star, things like never swimming a thousand miles from any land—but the important things, the vital things, like making sure everybody she knew being able to remember her fondly; like carving out a life that was, at turns, spectacular and splendid; like dying with a smile on her face, she was able to fulfill.

I think I have said enough. We shall all remember Jennifer---this is the way with all loved people in history. Let us not mourn the passing of our Jennifer, our Jen, our smiling reminder of how great people can enrich our lives. She was a great woman. Let us instead praise and honor her as all great individuals have been praised throughout time. In this way her spirit of compassion, dedication, and strength will live through us and guide us---a brilliant and forever shining star.

She was someone who was important to all of us and who we all loved. Let that be our memory of her.

Yeah, I'm not going to be sleep at all tonight.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers