Grateful Growth
Dear Chris,
Learning of your passing has sincerely, deeply affected me. I don’t regret much in life but I deeply regret having not been more cognizant of how the finality of a friendship can sneak up out of nowhere. I didn’t know you were going to be gone so soon.
I am so sorry I didn’t offer to talk on the phone when we messaged in Jan 2021. I am so sorry I didn’t even think of it. I am sorry I wasn’t strong enough, brave enough, or aware enough to reach out more often than on your birthdays the past couple of years. I have been so swept up in my life and in survival mode for so long.
If I could speak with you now, I would want you to know that I appreciate your friendship. Thank you for your life. Thank you for your journey. Thank you for sharing time and space with me. Thank you for the connection we had. Thank you for helping me cope with cancer. Thank you for celebrating my healing. Thank you for the last message you sent me in Jan 2022, where you said you hoped your message found me happy and healthy and told me to “be well.”
I am so glad we were able to briefly connect before your passing. I just didn’t realize it would be the last time. I have learned a lot from you in life, but I am also learning from your death. Life is so very short. I need to make time to connect with people who matter in my life. I need to balance my self-protective self-absorption with a greater awareness of others’ feelings.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell where to put the boundaries up and where not to. Sometimes it’s hard to slow down and look at what’s happening to others. Sometimes it’s hard to look because I don’t want to acknowledge pain and suffering. I have a fear of losing myself, but in the end, we all do. I have struggled with these feelings but I imagine it is all, on some level, understandable. It’s all so very human.
However, the realization and regret I am feeling are intense enough, it is already shaping my behavior. I am sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Chris, I am praying for your peace as well as the peace of your family and loved ones. Thank you for the gift of you.
God speed.
Anastasia
