Last night, Roger, Kaelyn and I met up with a friend of ours for a sushi dinner. I had been looking forward to this dinner since we had planned it a week earlier. Not just because I miss seeing Barbara at work everyday, although I do, not because I've always thoroughly enjoyed our conversations, which I do, but because I was getting to see her again for the first time since she almost lost her life. Coming so close to losing another friend, unexpectedly, touched me as deeply as the ones I've lost forever. The difference is, this time, I experienced the shock, the thumping of my heart as it fell into the pit of my stomach, the expulsion of all the air from my body, but when I started breathing again, she was actually still there. It wasn't over and everything was going to be ok.
I really wanted to know how her life has changed these last few months. Of course, I wanted to hear what happened from her perspective, but not so much for the gory details, as it was for the spiritual experience of it. What is it like, to think, for a moment, that life was over? What does it feel like? Did she know? And when she realized how close she came, did it change her view of life? We really didn't get that deep into the conversation. Instead, our conversations revolved around work-the company I used to work for, how things have changed (or not), how she's adjusting to being back after months of recovering from her injuries.
When I walked away from the meeting, I thought about how great it was to see her, talk to her, how after months of not being in contact, we were still the same friends, with the same conversations, as we always were. In other words, nothing changed. And it wasn't until I was on the way home that I truly thought about that. It's not really what I was expecting. I just can't pinpoint what it is I did expect.
I've never really had to deal with my own mortality. I've unfortunately, experienced the death of too many friends and family members. I've experienced the shock of how everything can be perfectly ok one minute, and completely not the next. Yet, I never really had a moment where I had to deal with the fragility of my own life. Even deployments to war zones didn't bring that kind of danger to me. My brain tumor was benign and more of an annoyance than anything else. I was hit by car as a child, yet never was I in danger of having any serious, much less life-threatening side effects of that accident. I've never had a near-death experience and the closest I've ever come to contemplating the ending my life, is when I lose someone else.
It occurs to me that Barbara is able to slip back into her "normal" existence seamlessly, because she was already living her life to the fullest. She already loves wholeheartedly, shows her appreciation of others, surrounds people with her intoxicating and magnetic personality. She doesn't need to contemplate the meaning of her life, because she's already the perfect version of herself. It's pretty amazing to think, actually.
And so I think about my life...and Roger's...and Kaelyn's. Am I living to my fullest potential? I hope so. I work hard, I love harder, I have fun in the meantime. I've traveled the world, served in the armed forces, gotten a few degrees. I've seen and done so many things in my young life, that I'm perfectly content spending the rest of my thirties focusing on raising a child. I don't need to travel, run any more marathons, or achieve anymore goals for me alone. My focus can be my marriage to Roger and how we raise our daughter.
If tomorrow, it would all be over, I'm sure I'd be OK with it on some level. On another not so much. Because I'm living a great life right now. I don't want to miss seeing Kaelyn grow up. I want to grow old with Roger, have us become grandparents together, and retire as cranky old people that drive everyone around us crazy. My life is not complete, because I havent' completed it yet. Yet, I also don't have much to change. I'm doing what I need to be doing.
And so is Barbara. I'm happy she's here...because I love her, too.
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