Today marks one month since I unexpectedly lost my best friend Julia. This piece is about coming to terms with the sense of relational unfinishedness and longing I experienced after her death. Coming to terms with the fact that we won’t be able to complete certain relational arcs anymore. And finding love that continues after loss.
On the 31st of December, I received a text message “Julia is dead.”
What do you mean dead?
She was my best friend, a permanent fixture in my life, the only friend who knew me since I was a 12-year old, insecure teenager to an almost 30-year-old woman.
We saw each other through multiple growth journeys, new relationships and painful breakups, job changes, burnout, and everything in between.
I could not believe she was dead.
We were just backpacking in Mexico together last month. I was looking for an adventure during my career break and she wanted to make South America her temporary home.
But the deeper reason I wanted to travel with her was connected to our relationship. Ever since I’ve gotten fascinated with relationality and started to express myself more authentically, she was someone I most wanted to try it with.
We were very close and knew the most vulnerable details of each other lives, but I felt that our in-person interactions did not have the quality of relational exploration that was so nourishing for me at circling workshops and in new friendships I made there.
When we called, we exchanged a lot of stories about our lives, new experiences, and relationships, but we did not often speak about how we were making each other feel as we sat in each other’s presence.
I was longing for this new kind of intimacy with her, one where I could say things like “The way you reacted to me now makes me feel like I am stupid” and for her to be able to say “When you send me a calendar invite for our call, I feel like you only have 2 hours for me.”
I came to Mexico with a lot of intentions and ideas, but the longer we spent with each other, the more we clashed.
I felt like my usual ways of creating more connection with a person did not work with her somehow. I found myself afraid of her judgment.
Four days in I wrote in my journal:
Today my story is that maybe she is not that curious about me. About what I think about things she cares about. About what I feel, in response to things she’s saying or doing. Or at least I don’t feel her curiosity.
Two weeks later, when we were fighting one night in Oaxaca, she said that it felt like I had some expectations towards her, and that I needed curiosity from her all the time.
At once, I felt hurt and grateful. It was relaxing to hear the truth of her experience, even if it was also hard to hear.
This was the kind of connection I was longing for, one where we share truths about our experience even when it’s scary.
There were so many new threads that opened up between us, and so much more potential to go deeper together. But the capacity for these conversations was just not there and I decided to drop my agendas, and hope that with time, we would find our way to talk about it all.
What I did not foresee is that 3 weeks later I’ll be getting a text message saying that she’s no longer here.
How can this be?
As I stared at the screen of my phone, I felt a little girl inside me look up at me and say But I thought friends don’t die.
***
In the weeks after she passed, I've been struggling to cry. I've been feeling empty in my heart and guilty for moving on with my life so quickly.
I remember it also happened when my grandma died 10 years ago. My cousin noticed that I was not crying at the funeral. The way she shared it with me felt as if she actually meant: “You didn't love her”.
But I did. I now see that I loved her too much to be able to feel that extent of pain, so I blocked all memories of her, the smell of her clothes, the way she laughed, and the little things she said.
It worked very well at the time - I was able to write my high school finals the very next day and continue with my plan of studying abroad.
But something was gaping in my heart for seven years until I took some acid and finally felt this deep rift that formed in my heart as I destroyed my memories of her to survive.
This place where there was barren land, but there could have been love for her.
And so when Julia died, I told myself I was going to do all that I could to keep her alive in my heart and allow all the emotions of grief to arise.
I created an online form Remembering Julia and sent it to her friends from all around the world, asking them to share photos and memories of her.
At first, I thought I was doing well. I was looking at our pictures together and crying and just letting all the waves of anger, sadness, pain, and disbelief roll through my body.
But as I started feeling like it was time to start living again after this loss, I also started losing my tears and feeling that I was doing something wrong.
I should have more tears for her.
***
It took me a few days and one conversation with a beautiful woman named Rosie to notice that what I was experiencing was in fact normal and that there was no right way to be with grief.
That even the emptiness, numbness and tension I was feeling were clues in the surprising process of coming to terms with a loss.
After that conversation, I felt that something opened up and I found myself reading through all the memories and pictures that Julia’s friends shared in my online form.
They all wrote about her empathy, how sensitive she was, and how deeply she thought about the world and herself.
As I read it, a big ball of sadness started welling up in my chest.
I realized that in our last month together I was not able to see her beautiful qualities because of the conflicts we were experiencing as we traveled and lived together for the first time.
She wanted to be more intuitive and I wanted to be more structured. She felt like I had some agendas towards our relationship and she wanted to be free, and goal-less.
I also remembered how before we left for Mexico, I connected with some anger I’ve been feeling about the way she sometimes spoke to me.
What emerged was a strong sense of need I had that I never expressed to her in person: I want you to care for me. I want you to see me.
Now I saw how much that need framed my perception of her. Subtly, whatever she said or did was filtered through that part of me that felt unseen and kept looking for an answer to the question Does she see me? Does she care about me?
I was so focused on what I needed and was not getting that I forgot how to keep my heart open to her in the process. It felt almost as if I could only love me or her at one time.
And now that she was not here anymore, I wished that I spent more time telling her what I loved about her and how much she meant to me, while also telling her about my needs and vision for our connection.
As I stepped out on the porch, I felt the sun wrap my whole body in its warmth. Suddenly a cold wall inside my heart broke open and I felt tears streaming down my cheeks.
I hope you can still feel my love. I am sorry for not knowing how to love you.
As the tears started drying, I looked up and saw a black cat sitting on the fence, staring right into my eyes.
Is this her? Are you looking at me now and listening?
As I felt met in the cat’s eyes, I laughed and felt something relax deeper inside me, like when you’re falling back and big, strong arms catch you.
I realized that I could still talk to her and that my relationship with her was not over. I can still love her.
Every day I can choose to love people around me. I don't want to love them only if they meet my needs or if they love me back. I don't want that to be the filter for whether I can offer them love and see their beauty.
I can also choose to love myself this way.
With my heart opened, I could now see the ways she loved me too.
I see her love in the the way she invited me to travel with her even though she never did that with anyone, apart from her mother. I also see how instead of talking about her world, she invited me to experience it with her.
Thank you Julia, for being my imperfect friend and letting me be yours.
Thank you death, for showing me love.
And thank you cat for reminding me that she’s still here somehow.
Beautiful and heart-felt. Thank you for this gently sobering reflection on loss and love, Sandra.
thank you for sharing this Sandra. Your story has helped me see what really matters when it comes to spending time with loved ones