When You Lose Your Friends

"No one should take themselves so seriously (please stay with me)
With many years ahead to fall in line (please stay with me)
Why would you wish that on me?
I never wanna act my age (please stay with me)
What's my age again?
What's my age again?

What's my age again?"
-Blink-182 

Julie (left) with me after a horseshow-summer camp at 13 years old. I had two blue ribbons that day, and Julie always showed her support for me, even if she didn't win anything. 

    The weekend of the family reunion came and went with a lot less drama than I had expected. I avoided actually attending the reunion itself by busying myself with work and tending to Auggie, but I did talk to my aunt and uncle as they were staying at my parents' house for two nights. I wrestled with deciding what I should do (morally speaking), versus what I wanted to do with my time. In the end, I simply avoided the forced gathering by quietly making myself unavailable. To my surprise, nothing was said to me about missing the event and I finally felt some sense of peace. I could go back to my schedule as planned.

    It was in the last week of September that I received some news, very much out of the blue, about an old friend of mine. My older cousin had an annoying habit of keeping tabs on everyone she's ever met using Facebook and then pestering me about the latest gossip. I had deleted my Facebook account eight years prior and couldn't be happier to be rid of it, yet my cousin would constantly send screen shots of social media posts to my phone, ostensibly as a "service" to keep me updated. She followed several of my friends that she had met at my wedding, and Julie was one of them. 

    On this particular occasion, my cousin texted me a link that she had pulled off a Facebook post to the Caring Bridge website (caring bridge.) It led me to a journal entry by my old friend, Julie who used to ride with me at the same farm where I kept Auggie. I opened the page, unsure of what I would find and slightly irritated at my cousin for Facebook stalking. What I found shocked and saddened me.

 

September 27, 2022

Journal Entry by Julie — September 27, 2022

When the crap hits keep coming.......

I had to make a trip to the ER my normal location   I was informed that the cancer has now eaten my bladder and is progressing quickly.

I'm just along for the ride at this point....

Love to all.

    I scrolled through the page. What was going on? I hadn't heard directly from Julie since my wedding in 2010, but I knew that she had gotten married and had a daughter since that time. Apparently, I had missed out on something and needed to get caught up on what this was all about. As I read through the pages on Caring Bridge I learned the disturbing truth of what had been going on with my old pal for the last year or so, and it was devastating. I was so out of the loop, how could this happen? I felt a wave of guilt wash over me as I realized that I hadn't been around to at least show my support, but now for whatever reason, I had gotten the message.

    As I read the entries from the previous months, I learned that Julie been hospitalized multiple times for an aggressive form of cancer that spread through her pelvic region. Invasive surgeries, infections and complications plagued her through the winter and spring of 2022, with no real end in sight. No matter what the doctors did, the cancer kept coming back and spreading to another part of her body. After enduring an incredible amount of suffering, Julie had made the decision to enter into Hospice care on September 11, 2022 when it was discovered that the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes and bones very rapidly. All the surgeries and treatments had failed, and she was just waiting for it to end.

    

Julie riding an old Appaloosa name Justin, with our friend Jessica in front. Summer camp 1999

    I went home that evening and dug through some old photo albums that I had filed away in the closet. I had always loved taking pictures as a kid, and I knew there were some left from summer camp at the farm when we were young. As I flipped the pages, memories of the wild antics at the farm came flooding back. Things were quite different back in the 90's when Rich was in charge, and every year from third grade all the way up to eighth grade I would look forward to a couple of weeks at camp as break from the monotony of helping with the family business and the purgatory of Catholic school. 

    

    I was laughing to myself remembering all the ridiculous pranks we pulled and the absurd inside jokes my group had, particularly in the last two years that I attended. Julie was a couple years older than I was, but it didn't seem to make much difference as I was absorbed into the "older kid" group when I was 13. We all had our laughs, bareback riding and acting like fools when we were supposed to be cleaning tack, joking about how cranky Rich was and laughing at the "arts and crafts" produced by the "little kids."

    I can never hear "What's My Age Again" by Blink-182 without thinking of that summer when I was 13 and we were just a bunch of mischievous kids having the time of our lives. 

    I never realized how good we had it back then. At thirteen everything is so unfair, you think, and you just can't wait to be grown and do anything you want. By that time, you figure you'll have it all sorted out and life will just hum along because you are finally in charge of your destiny, but that's not what happens at all. We didn't appreciate it enough; the horses in the pictures were all long gone, the people had all moved on, and society had seemed to change so drastically in such a short period of time. I felt the stab of nostalgia and remorse all at once.

    I needed to share the pictures with Julie one last time. I had to at least leave her with some good memories before she left the earth, and for the next couple of days, that became my mission. I found her mother's contact information on the Caring Bridge website, and I nervously texted her to see if there was a chance that I could visit one last time. Anything I could do at that point would certainly be too little too late, but I still felt the need to do something. I had lost friends in high school and college to suicide and drug overdose, and I just couldn't stand the thought of missing one more chance to say goodbye.

    It was the first of October when I made contact with Julie's mother, Joan, to see if I could plan to visit her in hospice. My heart broke for Joan, who had always been a sweet, welcoming lady when we were giggly teenagers staying up all night at a sleepover in her home. I couldn't imagine the tragedy of making arrangements for your own daughter to pass away after fighting so hard to stay alive, let alone the thought of leaving behind a husband and a four-year-old daughter.

    I texted Joan, hoping not to bother her, and inquired about a visit or at least sharing some of the old pictures. In true Joan fashion, she responded promptly and politely,

    "Oh yes, Carolyn. I do remember you! Thank you for reaching out, I am sure that Julie would love to see some of your pictures! You could email them to me, and I can share them with her. She has her good days where she is more coherent than others so it is hard to plan a visit, but I will ask her and get back to you!"

    With that said, I went to work scanning the photos from the album I had unearthed and putting them together in a slideshow in hopes that it could bring my old friend one last laugh. I spent quite a few hours that weekend putting everything in order before I eagerly emailed the files to Joan. I didn't spend much time riding Auggie that weekend, as my mind was focused things that I could not control. And as my mood sunk, it began to rain. It rained for the entire weekend, as if to reflect the dismal state of affairs. Friday, Saturday, Sunday it was a steady cold rain to welcome the month of October.

    The weekend came to close, and I heard nothing back from Joan. The rain continued into Monday, and I spent the day attempting to plant cryptomeria for a client in between down pours as my boots squished in the mud. I would scrape my boots off with a spade and still track big clumps of mud with me out to the road as I went back and forth to the truck. The rain was becoming redundant. A few months prior, we had prayed desperately for it, and now it had showed up all at once.

    Another day and night of steady rain passed. On Tuesday, October 4th, just about lunchtime, my phone buzzed with an updated message from the Caring Bridge website. Before I even opened the email, I knew what had happened. Julie's family had posted one final entry on her page, letting everyone know that she had passed just after midnight and was no longer suffering anymore. I was sitting in the truck in the driveway with the windshield wipers on full blast as the rain continued to pummel the roof of the vehicle. There wasn't anything I could do to change what had happened, there was only support for the family at that point. 

    I turned the truck around and pulled out of the driveway. I headed to the farm in the pouring down rain to spend time with Auggie. I couldn't think of a better way to handle the news than to go brush a horse and think things over. Life went by way too fast.