I’m not sure….do you think it might be open?
Today was a day filled with all the feels….a short ferry ride across the water to Bowen Island, to pay respects to the family of someone lost too early. But also to try to provide moral support to a friend, who as also a friend of my friend and who became my friend through work.
Kirk dropped me off at the ferry terminal, far earlier than I’d ever normally be there…and I didn’t make my boat bacause it was full for walk-ons.
When does that ever happen!
Today, apparently.
A quick text …”I missed the boat, I’ll be on the next one…don’t worry about me…I can walk to the house“
So I had a bit of time to wander around Horseshoe Bay before the next ferry.
I walked off the ferry and onto the little Island community, I didn’t make it a block before I heard my name called out from across the road. Another colleague known since the days that I was in grad school, waving at me. The thing about a head of shocking copper hennaed hair….you stand out in a crowd. He knew I was coming on this ferry, as was another, and he’d jumped in a car to come pick us up and shepherd us to the gathering.
Today was another day filled with feels…remembering an amazing woman lost too early.
The last one out the door of the lab, the one to turn the lights off, figuratively speaking….and the first one to venture into the great beyond.
The good ones leave too early.
When I arrived I found a colleague, she asked if I wanted to sit with others, socialize… I could tell she needed a break from everything.
How about over there, away from everyone, let’s sit on the grass?
Seemed like the right decision. Though we weren’t alone long. Friends, family, neighbours. A few I knew, most I didn’t. But the commonality was a love for a person lost to all.
The world is so much smaller than I ever really thought possible. The friend of my labmate/friend, who became my friend, is a person as equally special as the friend we both lost. I can never replace what she lost in losing our mutual friend, but I can try to be there for her when she needs an ear.
In the end, all we need is to know that there is someone who cares? Someone we can sit next to in a rocking chair and share space with as we age.
If there are two or three of those as we age….I think we have some riches.
And tomorrow I get on a plane, to go to a place I love, and spend a few days just talking about things I love to talk about, with people who also want to talk about those same things.
I am completely unprepared.
And it will be great.
Because, if nothing else, loss reminds you to appreciate so much.