Ramblings of a Mama in Mourning

I'm reeling, and I have to write somewhere, so I'm writing here.

When my mother, Susan, died at 32, we saw it coming.  She had an incurable disease, got sicker and sicker, and died slowly at home, surrounded by loved ones.

Tonight, my friend Susan died.  She was also 32.  She had a 2 year old son who won't remember her except through the stories of the many people who loved his mother.

I met Susan when my son was 8 months old and we both attended our first "baby-que."  Susan and I, and many many other mamas, had chosen the same midwife, and our midwife hosts a baby-cue every October, bringing together hundreds of her mamas and their babies.  Susan was pregnant when I met her, and she resembled my mother a bit, and had my mother's name, and I thought that was a neat coincidence.  We sat together in the grass and chatted most of the time I was there.

I think I told Susan about the mothering group I'd joined a few months earlier, and either she already knew others in it, or she joined shortly after.  My life started falling apart after that baby-cue, so I lost touch with just about everyone I knew.

Susan and I could have been great friends had I remained in Orlando and active in the mothering group.  When she suffered a stroke Monday morning, I discovered that we had dozens of friends in common, in and out of the mothering group.  People I'd known in high school somehow even knew her.  And every single one of us was praying, lighting candles, sending love, healing, and positive energy and asking all our friends and all their friends to do the same.

I wanted to believe that she was going to live.  Because perfectly healthy people don't just drop dead, damnit!

Susan was vegetarian, fit, active, radiant...and I'm morbidly obese, trying to be vegan, inactive, and radiance is my goal for this year but I'm SO not there yet...I know it's cliche to have survivor's guilt, but why the Hades is she gone and I'm still here?

And what are the chances that a person would know two women named Susan who would die at 32?!

And...

And...

I feel so helpless. 

I want to give every single hurting heart a huge hug, to help them to know that Susan has just gone Home, and she'll be there to great them when their times come, radiant as ever, and that if they just close their eyes and reach out with their hearts they can connect with her love and feel her wings closing around them.

I found out Susan had passed fifteen minutes before my tutoring shift was over.  I knew when the phone rang what I was going to hear, but I answered it anyway.  My student's brother heard me say that my friend had died, and just before I left he rushed downstairs to give me a picture he had colored to make me feel better.

I think it's a flower.

It does make me feel a bit better.  :*)