Come Back Pooh

How we became such close friends I will never understand.  I loved her for so many reasons, probably the biggest reason was that she accepted me with all my faults.  Kim was not afraid to die, but wanted to live.  I am afraid to die but do not want to live.  I don't think you can get any more opposite than that.  Eight plus years we would be the greatest of friends to each other.  Eight plus years we would talk about the day one of us would have to survive without the other.  We both just thought that would turn out differently then it did.  Kim was supposed to live longer than I did.  I was supposed to die first.

We both knew that the chances of survival in this world was greater for Kim than it was for me.  For as long as we were living friends here on earth to each other, I was diagnosed with depression, with the possibility of being suicidal.   Kim was my calm.  Kim was my go to person when life got overwhelming and stopped me in my path.  Kim was the one who charged me up, renewed my faith, sent me back out on my journey. 

Way before Kim got sick and diagnosed with brain cancer, we talked about death. Our fears, our expectations, our friendship.  I had experienced a lot of death before I met Kim.  A sister and two brothers was the death baggage I brought into our friendship.  After our bond was built I lost both parents, two close friends. an uncle, and my little Amazing Grace as well as a couple other people in my life.  A few years into our friendship Kim lost a nephew, Matt.   After that loss our conversations about death changed in that Kim now understood the pain of death in losing someone so close to you.  It was Matt's death that opened Kim up to the thought of suddenly worried about who would be next.   Who would she lose next that would leave a hole in her heart that would never be filled again. 

It was then that we talked about death as if it was a requirement of our friendship.  It bonded us in a whole new way.  It was at this point that Kim and I started talking about life on earth without each other.  I knew Kim would be ok without me around, but we both knew that without Kim around, I would be back to square one in my depression and suicidal thoughts.  We knew we didn't have to worry about this for years, because neither one of us were going anywhere.  We would both be around a for a long time before we would face that kind of pain with each other.

And then Kim's husband Cory lost his great friend Davey in an accident that left fear of death and fear of loss on the forefront of Kim's mind.  It was at this point in time when Kim started to worry about how each of them, her, her husband Cory, and her daughter Alex, would get along without one of them should something happen to take one of them away.  Kim became obsessed with death and the void it would leave.  She was determined to get her life in order in hopes that they would all be prepared should that day ever arrive.  It was at that time that Kim told me she now understood my consumption of the topic of death.  My fears of losing the people I loved the most. 

It has been a year now that Kim left this big old world to go to heaven. Like everyone else that has gone before me, it hurts just as much today as it did the day she died.  My heart is just as broken this moment as it was the very second she breathed her last breath of life. I am just as scared one year later as I was the moment I realized Kim left me alone in a world I never thought I would have to live without her. It is just as hard today as it was the day my brother Joey died to stay here without all of them.

I made Kim a promise I never thought I would have to fullfill. I promised my Pooh that I would let God decide when my time here on earth is done. That if God carried her home before me, I would keep fighting the demon inside of me that has told me since age fourteen that the happiness I seek is someone beyond my last breath of life.

Everyday is a struggle to stay. Everyday I pray for Kims soul. Everyday I ask her to forgive me for wanting to let go. Everyday I fight the demon of happiness. Everyday I ask God to let today be my day, the day he pulls my name out of the hat for eternal life. Everyday I  remember the day I promised Kim that I would stay here until God decided when I would breathe my last breath of life.

"Pooh, I love you so much. I still struggle in my faith trying to understand why you went first. Angry that God gave me you, only to take you away.  Broken hearted that once again heaven gained an angel and I lost a friend. That the happiness I found in our friendship was ripped from me once again.  One year later I am still waiting to wake up and find you never really left.

Come home Pooh, come back to the happiness I thought I found in our friendship. Come back and save me from myself. Come back and let me go first. Let eternal life be my eternal happiness. Help me ease the pain of life, heal my broken heart, release the demon in my soul. Pooh, I love you so much". ~ Piglet

If Tomorrow Never Comes ...

A couple years after meeting Kim we started talking about my PTSD, which hadn't yet been diagnosed.  Kim was the first person to tell me she thought I had PTSD, based on an abusive childhood along with the loss of a sister and two brothers.  I argued about that with her for endless hours.  A few months before Kim was diagnosed with brain cancer, I was medically diagnosed with PTSD.  She was right, she was always right, even when I didn't want her to be.

Almost throughout our friendship Kim and I talked about death.  I was always more uncomfortable with those conversations than Kim was.  I had lost so many already by the time I met her and those I loved seemed to keep dying on me.  Some deaths I could accept more easily than others, others I could not.  When my neighbor Old Man Joe died and his wife Mary shortly after him, I knew they had both reached the end of life, completing their old age circle of life.  It didn't hurt my heart any less, but as Kim always told me, " Jett, we are born to die".  I still don't understand why my sister Jocelyn had to die at the age of four, or Jayson and Joey at the age of 24.  There was little Amazing Gracie at the age of 8, Connor at 19, Cedric at 21 and many more that I just could not understand why God needed them in heaven more than I did down here on earth.

Then Kim died and every day since I have questioned how that even came to be.  She had a great family, a very good husband, a beautiful young daughter, and me.  I reminded Kim so many times that although we are all born to die, I statistically had the probability of dying before her.  She never argued with me about that.  We both knew of my suicidal tendencies and Kim knew how much I struggled with the dark side of my life.  I didn't want to die, and Kim knew that.  Kim also knew that if I could not keep my shit together, it could get really ugly.  And that became Kim's goal in our friendship, to make sure all my ducks were stayed in a row. 

I hate all the times she had to sit and worry from a distance when she couldn't reach me.  Or how many times she had to get ahold of my misfit dad Jake, to tell him something was wrong.  Then she had to sit and wait to hear that I was OK.  I never intentionally did that to Kim and when I would apologize she always said she knew that was part of our friendship.  I knew that was a big part of Kim's life anyway, taking care of the dark side of people and their lives.  Almost everyone Kim befriended had that dark baggage that she could help them with. Man was she ever great at helping people get their shit together.

Kim and I were not afraid to die.  We didn't want die, but we knew if and when we did we would be in the most beautiful heaven above us.  We talked about what it might be like, to live in so much beauty void of any and all darkness.  How God truly does bless us when He calls us home.  Again, neither one of us were ready to go.  And I was supposed to go first.  People were waiting for me but until Kim's nephew Matt died, no one was there waiting for Kim.  We were all down here, where she could fix us, love us, accept us for who we were.

Someday I will blog about the conversations Kim and I had regarding death.  They were some of the most intense real conversations we had in the 10 years of our friendship on earth.  I can honestly say that Kim saved my life more then once.  I never got the opportunity to repay by saving her life, just once.  And that makes me very sad.

I'm not trying to say I am the reason Kim had to go.  I am not saying there was anything I could have done to cure her cancer.  I am not saying anything more than I wish I had the opportunity to help her just once, to repay her for the many times she saved me.  When Kim was diagnosed with cancer she often asked me "am I going to die?"  I would tell her no, because I never believed she would die.  There was no dark side to Kim's life.  Mistakes, she made a few, but she had a good life.  She knew she did and she appreciated the life God gave her.  If there was a dark side to Kim's life, I never saw it and she never revealed it.  She didn't want to go but she was not afraid.  She believed in God's plan, she just didn't want to leave Cory and Alex behind.

I read the lyrics to this song every night before I lay my Bible down to reflect about all the light in my lfe.  My brightest light, My biggest star.  My sunniest day, will always be my pooh, Kim.  I am positive if you knew Kim and take a moment to listen to this song and the words being sung, you will feel her love in your heart all over again.  Remember how she lit up your world and how she left a light shining in you the day her tomorrow never came again.

We don't know in life when our tomorrow's run out, that is why it's so important to live every day, do the best we can, and have faith that if there is no tomorrow for us, it's because we are going to see her again, and no darkness will exist in us ever again.

If Tomorrow Never Comes

If Tomorrow Never Comes

 

Sometimes late at night
I lie awake and watch her sleeping
She's lost in peaceful dreams, so I turn out the lights
And lay there in the dark

And the thought crosses my mind
If I never wake up in the morning
Would she ever doubt the way I feel about her in my heart

If tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I loved her?
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That she's my only one?
And if my time on earth were through
And she must face the world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past gonna be enough to last?
If tomorrow never comes

'Cause I've lost loved ones in my life
Who never knew how much I loved them
Now I live with the regret that my true feelings for them
Never were revealed
So I made a promise to myself
To say each day how much she means to me
And avoid that circumstance where there's no second chance
To tell her how I feel

If tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I loved her?
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That she's my only one?
And if my time on earth were through
And she must face the world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past gonna be enough to last?
If tomorrow never comes

So tell that someone that you love
Just what you're thinking of
If tomorrow never comes