The Conversation You Don't Want To Have

When saying goodbye to a friend is forever

Photo by Joseph Pearson on Unsplash

Before my husband and I set out on an eight-month backpacking trip around South America, we’re making a round of goodbyes – one last dinner with our supper club, a final visit with my elderly mom, a Saturday hike with girlfriends. One friend I know I’ll never see again.  She’s on her own journey – one requiring much more courage than our own.

Alex and I lived together with three other women during our senior year in college in a house so old and drafty, we’d run our hands under hot water every few minutes to warm them when we sat at the kitchen table finishing homework. Our history together includes intramural soccer games and a weekend spent in Florence, Italy during our college semesters abroad. Even though we only live two hours apart, it’s been years since I’ve seen Alex. We’ve both been busy working and raising kids. She’s a single parent of two adopted brothers and hangs with a close group of women who surround her with friendship and activities. 

Alex is sick now, an insidious form of uterine cancer snaking its way through her formerly athletic body. Cat, our mutual friend from college, reached out with the news. “I just saw Alex. She’s really sick. You should definitely go see her.” 

I’m not part of Alex’s current social network, but there’s a bond that comes in knowing someone from way back. I hang up the phone and immediately call, “I’d love to come visit.” 

“That would be great,” she says, “But, you’d better come soon.” 

I get the message. In a life crowded with commitments, work, family, and an endless list of things that have to get done, visiting Alex catapults to the top. I take the day off from work, gather up a few photos from our college days and hop in the car. 

“Hey Alex,” I say softly, slipping through the front door of her small bungalow. Alex has always been a stocky and sturdy fire plug – she played goalie for our intramural soccer team, but I expect to see a gaunt and sallow cancer patient. Instead, she looks healthy, robust even, and happy to see me. 

“Hey yourself,” she says and motions me over to the hospital bed in the middle of the living room. She’s alone. Her sister, who’s flown up from Arizona to care for her, has taken the opportunity to visit a friend. Alex’s young boys, both born with severe mental health issues stemming from a birth mother with a meth addiction, are living with relatives.

I sit on the edge of her bed, and we flip through the photos from college. In minutes we’re both laughing. It feels like 30 minutes rather than 30 years since we gathered around kegs of beer after sweaty soccer games, danced on the grass at our college’s annual “spring fete,” and cross country skied through miles of trail near campus. Despite the fact that we both require reading glasses to see the pictures, her curly hair has turned gray, and there’s no hiding my crows’ feet, we convince ourselves that we look pretty much the same. Alex’s voice is strong as we talk about old times and relive memories. Mostly, though, we talk about the present. 

There are so many things about her situation that are unfair. Alex loved working for a state legislator, a position she’d held until a couple of months back when her cancer made it impossible. Faced with the expense of raising two high-needs boys and paying for health insurance on no income, she’d recently been forced to crowdfund among her friends and family to cover the bills.

“I can’t believe how messed up our system is that you have to spend time worrying about how to pay for health insurance,” I say when she thanks me for my GoFundMe donation. 

Alex also had to find homes for both boys. It wasn’t an easy task because the boys themselves aren’t easy. On at least one occasion, Alex tells me, she’s had to call the police to restrain her youngest son because he’d become uncontrollably violent.

 “The only solution I could come up with was to split them up,” she says. “My brother will take Leo, my oldest, but Matty has been more of a challenge. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but recently he’s become friends with a boy at school. They get along really well, and the boy’s mom has agreed to take him in.” I’m left wondering how that’s going to work out – fifth-grade friendships rarely seem that solid under the best of circumstances.

Leaving your children at any age is a grief beyond all measure, but when they are young? And have special challenges? “I don’t know where you find the strength to do this,” I admit. It all sounds so precarious.

“Mm.” she responds thoughtfully, “I feel a lot more peace about the whole thing now that I’ve taken care of the boys’ futures.” 

I glance at the pamphlet about dying on the coffee table. “Is there anything that you’re afraid of?” 

“I’m afraid of bleeding out,” she tells me. “I want to go peacefully at home. I fell last week when my friends were here. They couldn’t revive me, so they called an ambulance. I was taken to the ER where they did a bunch of stuff, and it was horrible. So, no more ambulances.”

 I’m startled by Alex’s honesty. And grateful. I’ve been taking care of my elderly mom, and it makes me think about death a lot. I cringe at the idea of being dependent on others for my care. I’m scared of how I might suffer. More than anything else, I don’t want to lose a sense of myself. 

I’ve never had such an honest conversation with someone who is dying. Alex has made it real. She’s also made me wonder how much of dying is not actually about us, but the people we leave behind. Making sure they’re going to be okay. Helping them become comfortable with the fact that you’re dying.

When it’s time to say goodbye, we hug one last time. I back my SUV out of the driveway and see Alex waving to me from her living room window. Driving down the freeway, I’m struck with how normal our visit has been. The afternoon wasn’t the sad trip down memory lane that I’d envisioned. Rather, I’m filled with gratitude to have walked a few steps alongside my friend. I saw a woman who knows she has days to live bravely letting go of those she loves and all that is familiar and facing the uncertainty and enormity of death with a sense of peace. I’m reminded of Brene Brown’s definition of courage as asking for what we need, learning how to be brave and afraid at the same time. I’m in awe of Alex and hope that with our last hug a bit of her courage rubbed off on me.