m e c h a n i c s l o g # 012320031.08a
m e c h a n i c i d # 03141969
m i s s i o n : d e a d r e u n i o n

on january 3rd someone who was once very close to me died without warning or meaning or any reason that any human can know. and i became sickened, saddened and fearful. because i understood innately that i can die like that too, and so can you, and so can alex and mike and any number of people i love. and there doesn't have to be any meaning in it. it's just the nature of humanity - we all die.

fuck!

this person who died - elaine charlotte ubry cowell, or as i once called her, "spike," was once my absolute best friend in the world. she was the best friend to break the best friend mold. she was my only anchor when my parents left me adrift in the chaotic comingling of families that their divorce and remarriages wrought. when my new step siblings were making me feel entirely foreign, unwelcome and unwanted, elaine told me i was okay - that they were wrong and treated me badly. she handed me tissues when i hid crying in the girl's bathroom at school, dreading to go home. her home and her family were respite for me in times of dire need. she was nothing short of a life line. and that's not all. she discovered punk rock and led me to the music i now love and try create. she made me laugh when i wanted to quit the world and she made sure i never, ever felt alone.

but things changed, like they always do. somewhere around her 18th birthday she made a point of giving me her converse hightops. it broke my heart. she had worn those sneakers everyday for the majority of her high school career. she had wanted to grow up, get married, have a family. i wanted to sing in a band, tour the world, change everything and be whatever i wanted to be. i didn't understand her desires. and worse, i didn't respect them. i didn't believe they were really hers. i thought she was on the side of those who were trying to tell me i was nuts - that i should just get married and get a job and have babies and be safe and forget dreams. i really thought she didn't understand me. what i missed was that even though she didn't get me like she once did, she still loved me.

when she did get married, a year after we graduated high school, i was her maid of honor. i was a terrible maid of honor. i was only 19 and had no idea what i was supposed to do. and i was scared of losing her, so although i loved her husband very much and knew he would cherish her the way i had, i was unsettled about her wedding. i was so afraid she was choosing things out of fear, because she was choosing things i felt pushed to choose too but was working really hard to reject. i was wrong about elaine though. i didn't get it.

a few years later she had a baby and i ran over to the hospital from work to be there with her and her husband. jonathan was the tiniest, youngest life i had ever witnessed in this world or ever held - an hour old! i couldn't believe elaine would allow me this close to her child - her heart. her trust for me always made me feel like i was a better person than i ever suspected i could be.

time marched on and we continued to change and become different people. elaine became too good - she was always smiling, always nice. i didn't understand her. i thought she was hiding her real feelings. i was angry and thought i couldn't reach her. i thought she had written me off as a basket case. i thought i probably was a basket case. then i actually became a basket case. and i left that life, those people that i could leave and i moved to new brunswick and dedicated myself to being someone else - me. and i left elaine behind in that other world and honestly, i didn't look back. i didn't talk to her for about 5 years.

on the night she died, i dreamed of her. i'm not kidding. she and i were in her parents' back yard, hanging out and talking, laughing like we had when we were best, best friends. elaine could make me split my sides, nearly pee my pants, with one look. in the dream we were laughing and catching up. her kids were playing in the yard and her husband was standing on the road in front of the house. i had come there to say goodbye to her since i was going off to college. she was saying she'd see me later. and things between us were understood - all patched up. we were the way we were, only we wouldn't be seeing each other for a little while. and everything felt right.

then i woke up and got the phone call she was dead. and everything about the past changed in an instant. everything had to be looked at again. had to be felt again. had to be refiled. i had to make sense of why i had cut her off. why i had let her go.

and i can make sense out of it, but that's not very much comfort now. so all i can do is find the lesson and apply it. i suppose it's something along the lines of

"don't forget the people who truly come through for you." and
"don't change who you are - if you must, change how you are instead."

because in spending time with elaine's husband, now 3 kids, parents, i realize that i'm not actually any different than i was at 15 when elaine was my world. i am older and i am clearer. i feel better than i did and i do much cooler things with my time. but i am still me. and now i realize that she was still her, and i missed her. i missed out. she died and i had to miss not just any future time i could have had, but the past 5 years when i didn't even try to reach her. i just didn't get it until she was dead.

and i suppose that's the point. don't wait for people to be dead before you get it.