I Found Life in Your Death

How horrible does THAT sound? For many years I found shame in the fact that this was the very "theme" to fit my life at the time. No one like my soulful friend deserved to die the way she did. I felt like I could have prevented it...I should have reached out more and been a better friend. I should have never let her leave that night. Her daughter will never know the way her smile TRULY warmed you to the core and was so incredibly contagious. By 25 I had realized that friendships are not always what they seem and the truest of true friends are extremely rare. Michelle was a true friend...and I had not had a friend so true since I'd been 17. So, to know that her death saved my life was truly bittersweet.

I say her personal demons became to much. The newspaper, she died from injuries sustained in an auto accident. But the truth is, she was driving drunk. I had heard rumors but, I wouldn't truly believe it until I heard it from her fiancée. She had went to a few bars that night after being sober for almost 6 months. Instead of staying home alone, she decided she wanted to go stay the night at his house and drove off into the night to surprise him. She would later tell the EMT that she was changing the radio and when she realized she had crossed the line and was about to hit another car head on, she then jerked the wheel back, overcorrecting and drove off the road into a phone pole. She died a few hours after arriving at the hospital. She died with strangers and that made me the sickest.

They tracked her family down later the next day thru her fiancée. In her last moments on earth, she spoke to a very kind nurse of Steve. The nurse would track him down at work the next morning and everyone's world would be shaken to the core. It would set a domino effect into action in my life that would be the biggest life altering event next to the birth of my children. She would unknowingly save my life.

She and I were one in the same. We had grown up with similar childhoods, issues over our fathers and mistrust for men. We both got pregnant young and always seemed to end up with abusive boyfriends. Unfortunately, the husbands hands that inflicted the abuse on her ended up killing their youngest child, her beautiful 2 month old son. So, she understood my demons and the pain I lived with and I understood hers the best I could fathom in my mind. Neither of us could handle the pain of our existence a lot of days and we numbed it with alcohol. We were young and beautiful. And we both had a way with men...they may not have been on the best spectrum of men but, nonetheless. So working at a gentleman's club seemed the perfect solution for us.

Suddenly, I was in a whole new world that I certainly wasn't used to. Drunk men can either be a mean, sloppy mess or they can charm the pants right off you. Top off that I had been a struggling single mom of two for 3 years and suddenly men where throwing money at me, taking me on dates and spoiling me...I had never had such treatment. My confidence boosted immensely and I really fell into the lifestyle. Michelle and I became quite the two-some and loved the fact that we were able to hang out and have a good time drinking for a living, acting like we had not a care in the world. People often complimented me on how I seemed to really have it all. Nice car, having my own house at 23 years old, picture perfect Gerber babies. The packaging was gorgeous, but the gift inside was shattered.

Most mornings I would call Michelle when I woke up. Having kids, I had to get up early and she liked me to call after I'd been up for about an hour. An hour or two later one of us would be on the others couch, curled up and eating lunch together. The conversation would almost always go to what Michelle was going thru dealing with her sons death and her in-laws having custody of her daughter and our mistrust of men and what it had done to our lives. It wouldn't take long for Michelle to produce a bottle from the freezer and I would pop a pain pill, both of us desperate to numb the pain.

I knew Michelle had a problem. Michelle knew she had a problem. She tried several times to stop "cold turkey" but she would get the shakes so badly that she'd give in and vow to "cut back." I encouraged her but, looking back now, I realize I should have taken a stronger stance...with her and myself. Yes, I was taking pain pills but I rationalized that they were prescribed to me. Yes, I was drunk 5 out of 7 nights a week but, I didn't start to drink until evening as I got ready for work and I never got the shakes if I didn't drink. I felt in control.

After 2 years, the party lifestyle would start taking effect on us both. I could feel the effects of all the drinking and partying on my body. Michelle decided that she had to stop drinking or she would die. I'm not sure exactly what the breaking point for her was but suddenly she quit her job and moved in with her father. We would go our separate ways for a few months while she tried to get clean and sober, only chatting on the phone weekly. I missed her horribly but, I understood why she had to do it. I wasn't ready to walk away from the lifestyle, fearful I'd never make the kind of money I was bringing in at the bar.

Then one night as I dealt with the madness of a Saturday night working at the bar, I would look up to see her bright smile. I will forever cherish those last hugs I got from her, the things we spoke about. She told me how much she missed me, our morning wake-up's, how happy she was to be engaged and have her life on track. She said she had her drinking under control and asked about getting her job back. After securing her job and having a drink with me, quickly catching up, she scribbled down her new phone number and said she had to go. "Call me. We'll get together tomorrow." Tomorrow never came. I would not lay eyes on her again until the her showing.

I felt extreme guilt for so long after her death. I replayed everything in my mind, finding faults in so many things I did. I told myself I could have saved her. And when I thought of her daughter never getting to know her, I felt even worse. The weekend after we buried her, friends would coax me out for drinks at the bar we worked at, in hopes of helping me cope. Yet, I would get so drunk that I blacked out and was told later I told everyone that I wanted to drive my car into a tree and die because I didn't deserve to live. I cried out that it was me, not Michelle, that should have died. I would awake in the hospital the next morning after driving my Mustang Convertible underneath a truck. And I woke to the faces of my children, watching over me in fear. Reality hit me like a ton of bricks as I looked into those eyes, and I felt so ashamed. I had let my own personal demons take precedent to my childrens needs and by doing that, I had almost taken away their lifeline...me.

No one wanted me to see my car. My boyfriend wanted to go to the wrecker service and tow it to his home. But, I felt I needed to see it. Partly because I couldn't remember anything and partly because I felt I deserved to be punished. So as we were leaving the hospital the next day, I demanded my boyfriend take me to the wreckers. As we drove in, I saw Michelle's car still sitting there...and there, just a hundred feet away, sat my totaled car. I exited my boyfriends car in a haze, feeling so surreal, and stood there looking at what I had done. I was so disgusted and ashamed of myself. I knew that my life had to change or there would be no "next time." So, I stopped at Michelle's grave on the way home, fell to my knees and sobbed as I begged for her forgiveness and promised her that I would not allow her death to be in vain.

It's been five years since I lost the best friend that I have ever had in life and things have changed so drastically for me. I kept my promises to her and did a 180 on my life but, I still felt so horribly guilty because in my mind, I lived because she died. I knew there was a reason, but it still hurt that I didn't have my best friend. Every day I would get into my car and see the silk orchid from her grave that I had tucked into my dash and would think, "Why did let her leave that night?"

Then, I had a dream that would put everything in perspective for me. While I have never been one who's big on ghosts and afterlife, I do know that in the years after her death I have dreamt of her a few times when I was struggling in life and she would always tell me to be strong, that it would work out. The dreams would always end with me begging her not to leave and she would just flash that stunning smile and say, "You know I have to." And then, a few months ago I finally found the strength to express my feelings thru my art and it brought up a lot of those painful feelings and memories. I began morning her all over again.

Then one night as I slept, I was dreaming of this house I had been thinking of buying, but fearful of the change. I was standing in the empty front room, thinking of the possibilities when the doorbell rang. I turned to see her standing outside the door, holding her son. When I opened the door to let her in, I cried to her, telling her how I missed her so. I physically felt all the pain throughout my body. She just smiled, placed her son into my arms, and as this warm and calming feeling overcame my body she said, "Do you feel that? That is how I feel all the time now. I'm okay, and you will be too." I finally understood.

I've learned that I need to live my life to it's fullest each day. I have to let go of the hurt and pain from my past, forgive and move on...because if I don't, it will drag me down and destroy and kill my spirit. Michelle's personal demons just became to much and I feel that in life, she drowned in them. So, to hold true to my promise, I will not let mine drown me.