She was out of the province, so we didn't get the news until Saturday. The RCMP (fed. police, for those not aware of this bit of canadiana) went out to deliver the news at 4:30 in the morning on Saturday, and her husband called us later in the day to ask us to please come and be with her.
Her daughter - this little free-spirited pisces - died, ironically, while taking pictures next to a natural waterfall. She slipped and went over the edge, and was lost to her mother, to us all.
Her daughter was a young woman in her early 20s, and was the epitome of joie de vivre. She was an adventurer and a conquerer, a seeker and a sage - from an even younger age. She danced and she sang and she sketched and she wrote and she lived like today was the only day that mattered, and in the end, she was right.
Some say that pain is such that it washes over you in waves. I think those people are wrong. Waves are water, and water is relaxing and serene and sometimes it's so turbulent that you can only stand and stare at it in awe-inspired reverence.
Water can take your breath away, when there's too much of it. It can be frightening and overwhelming, and you can't control it. But there's a comfort in that, in allowing yourself to accept that this is beyond your control and you must just succumb - just float in it and let it wash you where it may.
I don't think waves are a good or accurate picture to paint of pain.
My friend is, of course, devastated. Her grief is so profound, so palpable, that those of us around her find ourselves immersed in it -breathing it in through every panting pore. It has transcended the emotional, and has become a physical cloud of floating ash that scratches our throats and settles on our lips if we dare close our mouths.
And we have to close our mouths, because, sometimes, the burn of it is so strong that we lose our own breath. Other times, it overwhelms her, and we try to take deeper breaths, because swallowing the smoke ourselves is better than leaving it for her to breath.
There are times where not breathing at all is better than breathing that. And it's not, really, but it's all we can do.
So we choose to hold our breath, and those of us that are able to choose to hold hers for her as well, until she's ready to gasp and wail and swallow another smoldering ember of pain.
Because we want to swallow for her, but they aren't our embers, and the most we can do is let them burn our hands until she's ready for another.
I woke up this morning, and my hands ached. Another reminder that i do, in fact, dream in colour...dream in red. I don't know how to not live my symbols.
My throat aches too, and so does my back and neck and head. I walk in a fog, my eyes stinging from the sooty air around me, and I do my best to look for light.
I saw a lemonade stand yesterday. Lemonade stands are such little-girl things, aren't they? I didn't know whether to smile, chuckle, or weep...so i did all three.
My friend's daughter died friday, and these are the pictures that words draw of my pain.
I don't have any words to draw pictures of her pain, because there aren't words, and there aren't pens, and there isn't paper...and i don't know how to draw clouds of smoke and pain.
I don't think waves are an accurate way to describe pain, because even waves, though immense and all-encompassing, still wash themselves away, and take the detritus of beach sand with it.
I never could figure out how to get the smell of smoke out of my skin, when it's coming from the inside.
My friend's daughter died friday. Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.
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