When bad things happen to good people...

Normally, I am a pretty intuitive person and I know what to say "in the moment" if the moment isn't too personal or doesn't involve some unexpected tragedy. When I was at school, I made a very good friend named Dave and we palled around for the full four years of college. He was funny and smart and we always had a blast when we were together. I remember most that he had this incredible mullet! Seriously, it was the king of mullets which, back then, was perfectly acceptable for the times. He sprayed that sucker to within an inch of it's life on a daily basis and clearly he lived by the credo "The higher the hair, the closer to God". After graduation, I moved to Chicago with my best friend and shortly thereafter Dave followed. So, we palled around again in the windy city.

Dave was smart but sometimes naive. I recall once, when I was working with igLoo, the theatrical group, we had rented out the theatre space to a couple of punk bands who wanted to put on a late night all ages show. We rented the space because the income helped us pay the rent and insurance costs of running a small theatre space in a big city. This meant that all of our theatre staff would be on hand to take tickets and act as security. On this night, there was a large crowd of kids and when the music started they started swirling at the front of the stage to form a mosh pit. Dave, who'd never seen this before, thought they were starting a rumble or something and he headed into the crowd head first. It was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen when I saw Dave disappear into the crowd and then get physically lifted up and over the group and planted on the floor at the outside edge. The look on his face was priceless. But that was Dave. He and I shared a lot of personal ups and downs while he was Chicago too. He felt comfortable telling me how his mother struggled with a drinking problem and how his father was a no show for most of his life. I felt comfortable talking about my father's passing and how that affected me. Dave took a new job that moved him to California but we still kept in touch all the time. Clearly, we had no problems talking to each other about just about anything. Dave invited me to go visit him in LA one summer and I jumped at the chance. I flew out and spent a week with him (and his mother who moved there to live with him). He was a gracious host and wouldn't let me pay for anything including a trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios. We talked way into the night about almost everything. So I was taken by surprise and left completely unable to respond when, upon my return home, he called to tell me that he had AIDS. Not once did he bring this up the entire time I was there. So, on the phone, this smart, funny, dear friend tells me he has AIDS and is dying. And I did not know what to say. Literally, I was speechless and I think I said something stupid like "oh...okay..." and tried to change the subject. When I got off the phone I  lost it. I cried and cried and then, when I was done crying, I called him back. Dave told me he thought I had taken it pretty well. Too well, in fact. And I had to confess that I just don't know what to say in these "touchy" situations. So we cried together then and once that was out of our systems we talked facts. How long did he have? When was he diagnosed? The truth hurt because he was pretty far along even though when I was there with him I had seen no signs of illness. It was only a matter of months when his mother called to tell me that he passed away. I cried some more.

Recently, a coworker has been having a lot of health issues that had been baffling her medical providers. She's had a million tests done and now, it's conclusive, she has ALS. The prognosis for ALS is not good. Once they determined you have it, it's late in the game and people usually go pretty fast. Three to five years is the best case scenario. But it's debilitating over time and the loss of movement comes on fast. She's had to make a quick decision to place her home up for sale. She's tentatively rented a fully accessible apartment. She is moving in June and told me today that she hopes she will still be mobile then. When I awkwardly told her that I was sure she would be she told me that most people who have ALS are in a wheelchair within one year of diagnosis. Again, I was at a loss for words. I never know what to say because it seems that there are really no words that will make a difference. Telling someone "I'm so sorry" just doesn't seem to cut it. So my normally quick witted self becomes an awkward stammering mess.

Maybe it's because there's no rhyme or reason to this. Bad things happening to good people just doesn't make sense to me. Both Dave and my coworker had a vibrancy to them - honest, decent, caring people who would go out of their way to help others. It's not fair and it doesn't make sense. I know that in life we are all given our own paths and sometimes those paths are shorter than others but it still all seems very unfair. It makes me sad and angry and feeling very helpless and, I think, that is why I never know what to say in the moment. After I have time to process it, cry about it and rage a little, I can usually think of something. Maybe not something good...but something.