Farewell

[redheart]

Originally published at Ekunyi's Embers. You can comment here or there.

I lost a friend today. I will not write her name here, if only because this is a very public place, and some of our mutual acquaintances may not have yet learned of her passing. I would not want them to learn of it from my blog.

It hit me harder than many previous losses have, though I have lost friends who held a similar place in my life and heart. I wonder if this is because my relationship with the dead has changed: no longer do I simply shove the feelings of loss aside, moving forward because the person is gone and “in a better place,” but instead I find myself sitting with that death, seeing the change inherent to it. I hear the grieving lamentations of Aset and Nebt-het in my mind as I wonder how the family of my friend is mourning in their own way this evening. I mourn for her with them, and I mourn for them as well.

This person shared a spiritual Parent with me. I reached out to that Name tonight and expressed how I was aching at my loss of a sibling, felt Her sadness at the loss of a child and ached further still. We held each other in the way a Name and Her follower might, our conceptualizations of loss quite different, yet our grief perhaps more similar than I ever could have expected. I gave my Mother flowers as a sign of this shared comfort, I gave my Father flowers for offering me His strength throughout the day to do what was necessary: share the news.

I considered the art that I had made for this friend, the way that she had encouraged me to make more. I played a song from her favorite band during senut (and I sincerely hope, if she could witness this in some way, that she got a good laugh out of my attempt to sing along with Steve Perry and accidentally blowing out the shrine candle when I hit one of his famous high notes.)

Thinking of my friend, I’ll be spoiling my cats rotten tonight once I finish writing this, then donating to a local feline rescue organization in my friend’s name sometime tomorrow.

And I will move forward as I have done in the wake of losing other friends, but always take care to look back, always remember. It feels more complete this way, even if it simultaneously hurts more than it used to. I am grateful to Kemeticism for that, though I suspect it sounds odd. Grateful for teaching me a different way to grieve.

Most importantly, I am grateful to my friend: for her light, for her love, for her bravery.

Travel safely West, my sister.

Comments

[tornir]

I'm sorry to hear of your loss. :(
*hug*

[redheart]

*hugs back*