Parallel Pain.

A friend of mine just lost her mother. They weren't especially close, but she was her mother nonetheless.  I am having trouble thinking of anything else today. I am working from home, thinking about how in another part of the city, a friend just lost her mother. 

We're living parallel lives, and she is living tremendous grief and is experiencing one of the most profound losses a person can experience. The loss of a parent. And in this case, the loss of a mother. 

One day, I will lose my mother. The most significant relationship of my lifetime. A woman I live in the same building as. My mother. A neighbor. Our lives are very intertwined. My dogs visit her daily. I cook for her. We run errands together. I borrow her car. Our relationship is both practical and deeply comforting. Two single women, one elderly, one disabled. Both fragile in our own ways. 

I try not to think about the loss of my mother too often. I don't want to grieve a loss that hasn't yet happened. Why take on that pain before it's inevitable? But when a friend loses their mother, it is hard not to think about what that loss will look like for me.

For friends, they have partners and children. I don't. My mother is my most lasting relationship, and it's with someone who is biologically, fundamentally, programmed to love me. And I feel that. Nobody will ever love you like your mother. And I have trouble with attachment, and she's the only person I know who truly loves me. 

I feel that my mother had me because she wanted me. I've never felt like my mother didn't want her children (which is the case with some of my friends). I've never felt anything but love from my mother. We have our soft spots, our histories, but I've always felt I had a mother who loved me and wanted me, and who loved being a mother and grandmother.

I try and stay present and grateful for my time with her. Who knows, I could die first. I wouldn't wish that on her, though. I would rather take the loss, though it will be terribly lonely for me.

What a deeply sad reality - all the loss of the loves in our lives. 

I saw a Hungarian ghost.

I usually run errands on my break. Not all the time, but once or twice a week. I have an etsy shop, so I mail out items or I go to the bank.

Today, while walking along Saint-Catherine street, I saw a ghost.

Not an actual ghost, of course. It was mid-day and I was in full-sun. There were no wispy clouds, no fog. I wasn't up for a twilight pee, in a waking sleep. I wasn't in a storied place, I wasn't floating above my body. I was walking towards the MAC store, and I walked leisurely towards the Ogilvy department store doors when I saw her.

At first I wasn't sure. My eyes grazed her, as they do hundreds of people a day. Her eyes did the same to me. But there was this odd hiccup, where somewhere deep in my storied mind something clicked. I think it was her, but I can’t be positive. People change so much. She could be something else now. I am not certain, but I am pretty sure it was her. Her face had not changed. Her hair is more matronly now. She seems to be wearing the disguise of a rich housewife.

How can it be that someone I knew so well, so intimately is now an odd aberration? It’s been 12 years, maybe more. That time of my life is in the bastardized version of a memory. It’s not right, not really.

After seeing her I went into the department store and made my way to the 4th floor, where there’s a post office tucked away between 200$ haircuts and 500$ dress pants. Mail your letters like the rich do. Or would if they ran their own errands.

I looked over my shoulder once or twice. I didn't really think she’d come after me, she cut things off after-all. She was the one I couldn't reach. She's the one that cut all ties. It wasn't just me. It was everyone. All of it. Except for him.

I thought it would make me sad. It didn't. Seeing her gold jewellery confirmed to me that I don’t know her anymore.

I was sad for a very long time, but maybe not about her. Maybe it was more about the loss. I was tired of loosing. I was feeling increasingly rejected. Increasingly at a loss. Increasingly alone. Constant confirmation of what I already knew.

At one time she was my very best friend. The sister I never had. And since her, friendship has been hard. I'm more cynical than I was then. Friendships don’t forge through sleepovers and the absurd like they do when you’re a teenager. There's no crying over boys like there is when you're 16. We knew each other at our most vulnerable.

But that was a long time ago. And today, she was barely recognizable. Not physically, but as a being seeing and knowing another being. We didn't stop. We didn't say hello. Our eyes scanned through the city crowds and there was a flicker in both of us, and as soon as it was, it wasn't. We kept walking.

I walked into a luxury department store to mail a letter, and she walked somewhere that I do not know and cannot imagine.

Denali.

This was featured as a short film on Super Soul Sunday yesterday, and it just really moved me. It's beautifully filmed, and the love between these two friends is palpable.

There's no love like dog love.

Just gorgeous.