It seems almost like an unreal dream that Kip and I practiced this time so often. I know I have been here before, but the reality is taking its time to settle in.
It has been only a week since I suspected that Kip was back in the hospital. He had not answered my Sunday email suggesting how we might schedule our routine Monday morning chat on FaceTime. There was his ominous silence. It was a silence we had laughed away numerous times before when I quipped that when he didn’t answer my email or my phone messages, I could assume he was in the ER or the hospital. Again.
This time it would be a day before I got the email from Ellen announcing that this was a serious return to hospital. Kip was very seriously sick. He was put on a ventilator on Sunday. Then came the dreaded but expected news that his close family would be gathering to say goodbyes on Wednesday morning.
Kip and I had witnessed this chain of events before. Practiced it. Examined it. Turned it over and over. Imagined what it would be like. He from one perspective. Me from another. His was about letting go of life. Mine was about letting go of a friend.
Cancer may take life, but it gives time. We had years to prepare for the bend in the road we both knew was inevitable. Though we could only see vaguely through the fog of medical uncertainty, we new there was a sharp curve somewhere ahead. We moved along as though we had all the time in the world, for today.
It has been a week since the practicing ended and reality set its uncertain course. Kip died on Wednesday. Even though it has been only a week since I was certain he was about to die, it seems like a much longer time. Even though the reality that was emerging slowly was strangely familiar and practiced, it became a slow and difficult process. The peeling away revealed a pain and sadness I had not seen before. Practice is one thing. The real performance is quite another.
It has been a week of raw newness blended with studied familiarity.
I guess that I thought I was being prepared and practiced for the inevitable. But in the arriving of the letting go Kip and I both had to do this past week, I found it unfamiliar. The more I have allowed myself to settle into the reality of Kip’s death, the more I am finding the experience deeply sad and difficult. I have been down this path before. We had practiced, after all.
I now realize that the practice mostly made it easier for me to slide down a familiar route. Letting go was a practiced experience. I felt little resistance to the reality I slowly settled into. The practiced ease, however, has also allowed the sadness to enter in so effortlessly and deeply. Practice was no shield from sadness.
I wonder what it was like for Kip. When I knew he was dying, I wished him acceptance and an ease in letting go. I never thought to wish him the joy of realizing that he had experienced a wonderful life. Perhaps it is not too late to remind myself to think of what a gift it has been to have Kip as a friend, to have shared all those moments of supporting friendship.
As I delete all those future 9:00 FaceTime visits with Kip from my calendar, I also remember all those past scheduled times that are still there. We may have spent a little time practicing for what was to come, but we spent a lot more time living shared moments of life together. A good blend.