Releasing the Valve

In September, I lost my dear friend, Deb, after her long battle with breast cancer. It was a hard summer watching her fade into the shadows of her otherwise vibrant life. And in some respects, I am still there, under the punishing Sonoran Desert sun, waiting. Waiting for Deb’s phone calls and texts. Waiting for good news that chemo is beating back the cancer. Waiting for our friendship to resume its laughter and love of Mexican food and chocolate.

I wrote about losing Deb shortly after she passed and posted it here on my blog. Usually, a hundred people or so read an essay. So, imagine my surprise when over two thousand people read my post about Deb. As a writer, I wanted to take credit for what I had shared as though I had somehow ascended to the throne of authordom. Or maybe it was Deb. I thought I knew most everything about her. Did she have a secret fan base I was unaware of? Of course, both these explanations are silly, but I wondered why. Why now? Why did my words somehow cross an exponential threshold? Could it be we need a reason to grieve, a reason to cry?

Every morning, I reach for my phone and scroll through The New York Times headlines. By the time I reach the “Other Big Stories” section, I am so anxious and disillusioned with the state of the world that I skip to the recipes and puzzles. I simply can’t hold it all. I want to rescue starving children in Gaza and weep with mothers who have lost their sons and daughters in Israel. I want to save Ukraine. Tariffs, ICE raids, the economy, the East Wing of the White House, all before I get out bed? It’s too much. I am unable to attach myself to any of it. And yet, I do, and it spills out at inappropriate times in inappropriate ways. I find myself welling up over benign topics in conversation. I cry alone in my bedroom after a hot shower, where I just tallied up the number of pets I have lost over the years. The memory of their sweet faces, too heavy a load to bear.

Sometimes it’s rage that surfaces. Cutting my finger while slicing a tomato or finding that I forgot something on my shopping list can elicit screaming and swearing until I run out of steam and announce, “I need a nap. I’m going to bed.” 

I read articles and listen to news shows and podcasts by academics who still profess the problems without offering solutions, and I thank God that I’m not eighteen years old living through this shit. And I wish right here, right now, that I could offer the answer, a balm to heal our collective wounds. A Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King in my back pocket. But I am like the woman I saw at Walmart shopping with her teenage daughter, who, holding up a package of Oreos, did her own professing: “Five dollars for Oreos? That’s it. We’re done. I’m not paying five bucks for cookies!”

So, back to Deb and my post, where two thousand plus bewildered and disheartened souls found something among the clutter on social media that made them pause long enough to release the valve. And I am honored to have provided the vehicle.

Deb’s passing was her last gift to all of us, friends and strangers alike: “Right on,” she’d say. “Go ahead and cry. I’ve got your back.”