Someone was interested in my car. Then I realized I can't find the title to my car, which I need to sell the vehicle. Then that someone stopped calling me. Maybe they aren't interested. Hopefully someone in New York will.
Hopefully, it's all for the best. When things don't go your way, have faith that it's for the best. Maybe I will need my car for the first few weeks.
I can hardly think, let alone philosophize at 12:30 this Thursday morning, or Wednesday night. I just finished emptying my room. It took more than two hours. Surprisingly long. Saturday I am returning to clean. The thought of doing that is tiring already.
And what? Life goes on. But an important few thoughts.
I wasn't crying. I was very composed, actually. It was unfolding before me like a movie. But like a movie only because I have never witnessed death. Nor have I ever witnessed people grieving over death. I think most people in the world don't get to witness death. When someone is terminally ill, they are often left alone in the hospital at some odd hour, and the nurse soon discovers the, well, "event"? I don't know, like I said, I have only TV and movies to draw this scenario from.
But Tuesday morning I witnessed death, and the grieving over of death.
Monday night was one and a half hours. Tuesday morning was two hours. Nearly two hours. And at the end of those two hours, I saw my friend drive away, finally free to cry as much as she wanted. I could see from the distance the full devastation on her face. For the two hours before, mostly she was calm. She was making jokes a lot of times. "At least she won't be taking a bath anymore. She hates baths." "I guess she really didn't want to go for another car ride. She really hates car rides." But there was also consoling words, from me and from her. "Well, she's a real friend, sticking with you till you've moved in."
I said that last sentence. This 1.5 hours Monday night and 2 hours Tuesday morning taught me more about friendship. I learned a lot already these past weeks, months, especially from that meeting with the one guy friend I have made in New Haven. But that night, that morning, was a bigger step for me. I wanted to be there for a human being I cared at least a little bit about. But part of the momentum was her display of affection for her friend.
Her friend is her dog that had been with her for the past thirteen years. She could count the number of weeks they had been parted all those years with her fingers. And the dog came just right when she thought life wasn't worth living, that the whole world had turned dark. Thirteen years with this best friend taught her to love again. It sounds cheesy until you really understand how difficult it is to love again when you've lost almost everything you believed was lost. This woman has a lot of love even though her life isn't exactly cheerful now. She and I were never really close. In fact, for a long time I couldn't get close to her, couldn't really stand her laughter, her mumbles, her shyness, her bizarre behaviors, and of course, her incessant smoking and addiction to chocolate. I never thought we could be friends, at most tango friends. My prejudices didn't allow me to go close to her. I have mostly rejected any offers she had made for connection.
But there was something beautiful about her I could only discover when I found myself faced with yet another romantic episode that terminated completely. She and I were moving to the same borough, only 15 minutes apart but the same train. That itself gave me a sense of solidarity. We were moving around the same time, except that she was smart enough to rent a truck and move on one weekend while mine has been dragging out into the third and hopefully final week. We already talked about hanging out together once we settled in. I realized I was becoming closer to someone I didn't particularly like, or wanted to like.
The prejudices were overrun by a need for solidarity at a time when I felt lost. And she was receptive to any of my offers of connections. She was the only person besides my two closest friends who knew early on that something was wrong with my mood, that a woman was involved, a woman was making me sad and angry. She didn't make me say who it was; she just wanted to listen. That's how I connect to people: listening. So I felt comfortable enough to call her last Wednesday right after getting the exciting news that the woman in question was dating someone I knew. I was devastated and none of my two friends was available to hear me rant. So I called this soon-to-be close friend. I didn't say what had happened; I just told her I wanted to hear someone's voice, to know I wasn't alone in my apartment. I needed someone's attention and comfort. I didn't need to rant. Just needed a blanket.
And that was what she did. Listened, talked when I wanted her to talk.
So on Monday night I decided to go visit her. I knew her dog had cancer and would die any day now. I knew she was hurting (the woman, not the dog). So after a nice dinner with my dad in Chinatown, I headed over to this woman's house. It was the first New Yorker I visited since re-became a New Yorker.
When the door was open I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the chaos in the apartment (she had just moved in two days ago). By the smell of a dog (which I am not used to since I don't know many people with dogs). And most of all, overwhelmed by the sadness and tears on her face.
"How are you?"
"Not too well."
I love honesty, especially when you are sad. You only hide your negative feelings to those you don't trust a lot. There was a scratching sound. I thought it was the dog, but then I thought only cats scratch. When I entered her bedroom I saw the dog panting. The scratching sound is the sound of her panting. They had been up since this morning. The woman has been sitting by her best friend all day, with a brief nap. The vet said the dog shouldn't be feeling pain. Apparently the cancer-ravaged spleen would rupture anytime and hemorrhage would end the dog's life in a matter of hours. But throughout the day, the dog had periodic seizures.
What is a seizure? I didn't know. Just as I didn't know what death was. I remember seeing my chemistry teacher in high school going through epileptic seizures. He would bite into his left hand, which was totally scarred by then.
The dog would widen her eyes as if she saw something horrific. Her entire body would stiffen but also twitch violently. And sometimes she would yelp a helpless sound. That was a seizure. It always starts out with that eye widening, so horrific to witness. You could see the immense pain she must have been enduring. But for me, the worse pain was to see my friend. She would hold down the dog, kiss her head profusely, talk to her, tell her that it was going to be all right, "promised." I wanted to cry but I just caressed my friend as she was holding down her own friend and caressing her. After the seizure episode ended, I would give my friend toilet paper, to wipe off the white foam that came out of the dog's mouth, and also (a different piece) for my friend's tears. She didn't cry out loud. But the pain was there.
"I am sorry. I have to go."
I felt guilty leaving them like this. She said she would consider taking the dog to the vet in Connecticut to put her down if this torture continued through the night. "For my sanity and for her suffering," she said. And I told her if she decided to do that she should call me before 7AM.
I left her apartment sad. I felt helpless. I felt also a little content, strangely, that I was able to do that. I have overcome some of my prejudice, through bravery and kindness, or through solidarity with another lonesome human being. I don't know.
I got back there as soon as I could. I was on the train calling her to not move the dog herself some half an hour after she woke me up at 6:30. I felt guilty I didn't get there earlier. I had to get ready for work and prepare the place for the furniture movers. When I got in front of her apartment, I saw her getting out of her car. Good, I can still be helpful to get the dog down.
The dog looked different this time. More at peace. She said there had been more seizures but each was a lot calmer. We carefully carried the helpless creature down the building using a yoga mat. The scene was a little surreal for me. For someone who never really liked dogs (another reason I didn't really like this woman), he was trying to help one get to some peaceful place soon. All this time my friend didn't cry. She was visibly tired, exhausted. After we put the dog in the backseat and made room for her to sit in the back with the dog, she took out a cigarette and started smoking it, one from the pack I bought her. It was only the second time in my life I bought a pack of cigarettes, and neither time it was for myself. Prejudices eroding.
She started talking about her family. When to meet them. Plans with the vet. She thought her best friend would leave as we would be driving to Connecticut.
Then the seizure came. She threw away her cigarette and held down the dog again, kissing her, just as the many times I saw her do the previous night. I caressed one of her knees, again feeling the grief she was. It was true, the seizure wasn't as violent like last night's. But then something new I observed. I even stupidly said it, "Her pupils are dilating." And they continued to dilate. I realized the back of a dog's eye is this emerald green. The breathing got quieter. And before I knew what was happening, I saw my friend bury her face in the fur of her best friend and started crying out loud for the first time.
It was a dramatic death like in the movies, the only reference I had until now. And in the movies, it was always about people. But here, the grief is just as poignant even if not everyone involved was a person. I rested my head on my friend's lap and told her how sorry I was for her.
Yes, she had to go before one last car ride. A car ride that seemed so normal. We had to find a gas station. And I got us lost, of course (I had to be the one driving). But in getting lost we found a gas station. Every now and then as the driver I was reminded that there was death behind me when my friend extended her hand to touch what used to be her best friend. Every now and then I caressed my friend, held her hand tight, when I sensed the overflowing of tears. But overall, it didn't seem like a car ride of tragedy. There were two major traffic jams. I was late to work. And we talked a lot. Mostly about how much fun she and her best friend had, and while there were some sad words, mostly it was remembrance and jokes that I have mentioned at the beginning.
But when she drove off in front of my office building, when her face was contorted by grief just as dramatic as the dog's body was contorted by the last seizure, I felt the pang of the atmosphere she did very well to dispel while we were in the car. I felt a little guilty that I couldn't stay with her longer. I felt a little guilty that because of my presence she couldn't fully grieve yet. But I felt somehow at peace, even content in this moment of anguish, that I finally did the right thing these past twelve hours. I finally looked beyond my own petty grief, my own self-pity, and went to help someone I didn't really know, to whom I shared a sense of solidarity but nothing much else. And in return I wanted nothing. I believe the selflessness exists in me, but when I am going through so much of my own grief, boiled in my own anger and tears, I lose faith that I can really reach out to others and be the good person I want to be.
"I was telling my sister last night that during this hard times there are people I was hoping to help me but didn't, but then there were people I didn't expect to help me showed up. And you're one of them," she said while I was sitting on the floor with her Monday night. I wasn't sure if she was referring to the move or the dog, but with me, of course, it was about the dog.
I couldn't do everything I wanted to do for her. But I am glad I could do the right thing given the little time I have and the walls I have built myself behind. She is still grieving. I call her everyday to check on her. I don't find her mumbles, her smoking, her shyness, her awkwardness annoying. I see those attributes as parts of her to embrace. By luck, I was there for her so she wouldn't be alone the moment of farewell from her best friend. I see this as a sign that connections in life are always the right thing to do.
Pull down the walls. Walk on water to cross the rivers. All the pettiness, all the excuses to shut yourself in, are really small compared to the grandeur of a human connection. I look forward to spending more time with her. Her life will be much more different from what she had envisioned before the cancer diagnosis. I think she now trusts that she has at least one person to count on in the same borough of this new city we both claim as our new home.
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