The Art of Friendship

So, this sums up what I know about friendship. I pretty much suck at it. It isn't that I didn't have good role models. My Mom may be the best friend of many people that I know. She is the one that does this kind of thing and does it well. My Mom is 82 years old and still maintains friendships that she has had since grade school. She and my Dad remain friends with people from every town they have ever lived in and in the circle of their hometown, their friend base is huge. I'm going to give most of the credit to my Mom, although my Dad has many people he cares for deeply, guys he has fished with for 50 years, old work friends and current woodworker friends, he remains pretty much a solo act. My Mom on the other hand, never forgets a birthday, calls people randomly to catch up simply because they are her friends and works very hard at setting dates for outings, showing up when needed and putting others needs in front of her own. I think in the world of married couples, often there is one spouse that is very good at maintaining friendships and one spouse that comes along for the ride. In my marriage, Marty and I are both along for the ride. I am going to say it is one of the times I am grateful things skip generations. For all my failings as a friend, my children seemed to have gotten the message. They all manage deep personal friendships.

When Mike was a kid, friendships came hard. He tried, oh how he tried. I am not sure what reason God had for making those years hard on him, but the "never quit" attitude that became who he was, took root in those years. When Mike left for College he began accumulating friends, it was as tho he was making up for lost time. He was navigating the waters of people and even tho he got pushed under a few times for the most part he never again swam alone.

Mikes base of fire friends was big. The Wildland fire community is like all close knit groups where 50 percent of the time you are sarcastic and talk stupid, and 50 percent of the time you would literally die for the person standing next to you. This kind of lifestyle cements bonds that can never be broken. The bulk of these firefighters are men, men that Mike trained with, fought hours of fire next too, drank beer with on his days off and trusted with his life. And then there were two women.

Mike met Ana in one of his first fire seasons out west. I knew from the first time I heard him say her name that she would be a forever part of Mike's life. I am not sure I ever imagined they would be a couple, although when they promised that if they were not married to others when they turned 35, they would marry each other I wasn't surprised. Ana was a mix of all that Mike loved and missed in his sisters. She is sarcastic and irreverent, beautiful and stylish, loyal and her word means everything. She and Mike became forever friends. It was Ana who told Mike when his style needed work, she went after him hard about clothes, eating habits, gift buying and letters to his Mom. The stories of their work confrontations are re-told and re-told. In the workplace neither of them would ever back down. They were die-hard and dedicated Forest Service employees, both with strong convictions about policy and procedure. They were the friends that got caught singing Willie Nelson's "Mendocino County Line" in 2 part harmony on the Forest Service radio and made no apologies about it and the two that I overheard an argument that ended with Mike yelling "and that's why no one wants to marry you!" Mike never went west or east that he did not search out and stay with Ana. In 2006 he called me when he left Missoula and when I said "are you coming home?", he said, "yeah, Ana kicked me out".

Mike met Patti when he was based out of the Carson City office. When Mike first joined the Hotshots, he stayed in the base housing along with the rest of the crew. When Mike became a Squad Boss, it was frowned upon to share the same housing, Patti was in an Administrative position and she offered Mike a place to stay. For 2 fire seasons Mike and Patti shared a house. They saw each other only rarely and sporadically as they both worked details on separate crews. A few rare times they met up at large fires where they would catch up on house maintenance, garbage details, mail delivery and utility bills. Mike loved living with Patti, again she was the best of his sisters rolled into one woman. Patti was quiet and funny and beautiful. She laughs as Mike did, honest and long.Patti is loyal and her word is everything. They shared a love of movies, the outdoors, animals and life. It was Patti that introduced Mike to coffee presses and the fine art of good coffee. It was Patti and Mike that did "movie night" and special meals. Mike was with Patti the night I called and they were watching "Hitch", the movie where the guy with no moves was called Albert Brennerman. Mike said "why does the geek always have to have the name that sounds like mine?"

Then there is this: When Mike died, I cut all ties with two of the best friends I had in my life. The first was a friend I made in Nurses training. It was 1974 and we were both 18, newly married and pregnant. She was from a small town in Central Minnesota and we just clicked. For the next 32 years we stayed in touch. We had children the same years, both 4. For me, 3 girls, 1 boy...she 3 boys, 1 girl. We saw each other once or twice a year, exchanged random phone calls and Christmas cards. It didn't matter the time passing or the distance when we saw each other it was as tho time never happened. When Mike died, I didn't call her but the girls did. She came, along with her husband, it helped that she was there. She talked to me long and personal. By this point in life she was high up in the medical field, she was at the top of her game. She said the hard things that no one ever says. That Mikes death was wrong, that she hated that it happened. She asked me about Mike, the adult Mike, she promised to come, to Mike's house and spend time with me. I believed she would help me. I didn't hear from her again for two years. In January of 2009 the phone rang. It was Jane. She said "hey, it's me....how's it going?" I was literally speechless. All I could think of was the hours, weeks and months of trying to hold on. Silence stretched across the line, the pain I felt was physical. Then she said this "Sue, is something wrong, did I do something". I said, "I went to Hell and you left me there." She talked fast, about how she wasn't sure where I was, how to get ahold of me, many words to fill the silence. The last thing she said was this "I was scared, if it could happen to you, it could happen to anyone."

My friend Lisa I knew for 28 years. She watched the kids for me in the early years when I was working. Her children were younger than mine but she and I and our husbands became close friends spending many evenings playing cards. When her children were grown and gone we developed a habit of meeting once a week to roller-blade on the local bike trail. My children had been on their own for several years but Lisa's were in the late teen and young adult years and she needed someone to talk too. The spring after Mike died, Lisa called and said "it's time". get your Rollerblades and meet me at our usual spot. It may have all turned out differently if we had continued our pattern of her talking and me listening. When Lisa asked me how I was doing I tried very hard to put into words what I needed to say but almost no one wanted to hear. I always knew that she held strong Christian views but it was the unspoken between us. Our conversations were always fun and sarcastic, she was interesting and honest. It is in death though that religion rears it's head. We were blading along, the day was crystal clear, beauty was everywhere, it literally hurt me to be alive. I was trying to describe pain for which there are no words. Lisa said this. "Take comfort that God had a plan,she said Mike is in a better place", she went on to tell me that things happen for a reason, that I just have to believe.The more she said to stop the look on my face, the worse it got. It's when I came undone. On the side of that bike-trail, on that beautiful spring day I took a stand for Mike and against "God's Plan". I told Lisa that if I could I would trade Marty for Mike without hesitation and I would fully expect Marty to do the same.  It is a parents job to want their children to live long and full. Given the choice I would trade myself for Mike I would not hesitate. I told her I don't believe that on the day Mike died, that God didn't cry as hard as I did. More than anyone, God would know, how much Mike had left to do. And I told her six months earlier I may have listened to what she said, I may have even believed. Six months earlier, she and I had stood on the same side of life's road, we could not see or even imagine what the other side looked like. I told her now, I stand on the other side, I won't ever cross back. I cruelly asked her to try to imagine standing right where we were, look at the view, smell the wind and understand that one of her children will never do that again. It is the unthinkable. I let go of a 28 year friendship because I had moved to a foreign place, a place where Lisa didn't and couldn't speak the language.

This is what I know: On a cold, windy winter day in early December, planes touched down in Minneapolis from all over the west. Ten people did what I have never done in my life, they booked a plane ticket and flew half way across the country to say good-bye.Those were the friendships Mike cultivated.  Patti flew in from Nevada with only a dufflebag, tall and lean,beautiful, looking every inch the California girl she was raised and the extreme back-country skier she became. Ana arrived from Montana with several suitcases, 4 inch heeled boots, her nails freshly done, beautiful and confident every inch the Las Vegas girl, she was born and raised. They joined together in the Minneapolis airport and drove North to help Mikes family survive. Mikes broken  sisters from the west took their places alongside Mike's Uncles and Minnesota friends, they carried Mike the final time.

In January of 2012 I started writing this journal.  In these past nearly twelve months I have shared a small part of the darkness within me. I have tried so hard to bring Mike to you but even I know my stories are wrapped in pain. I have taken you deep into the mind of grief and yet you haven't walked away. Maybe it is a bit of like looking at a train wreck, you can't look away, but I don't think so. I think we all know deep grief will find us. I want you to know that it is the Mikes of this world that will help us go on. For 29 years he layed the groundwork for how we should live without him.

I had hoped that time would give me what I needed to help make right the friendships I have let go. Maybe I don't have what it takes.

The lyrics of this song must hurt Ana but Ana is wise, I believe she knows.

"Scarce as Monday morning feeling washed away

I orchestrated paradise couldn't make you stay

You dance with the horses through the sands of time

As the sun sinks west of the Mendocino county line."

 

"I don't talk to you much these days

I just thank the Lord, pictures don't fade

I spent time with an Angel just passing through

Now all that's left is this image of you"

Willie Nelson-Lee Ann Womack

"Mendocino County Line"

Ana and Mike's song.

 

 The vows of a good friendship must mirror all good vows...to have and to hold, for better or worse, in sickness or in health, till death us do part. When I told my grief group what my friend Jane had said they all understood what I was feeling. The grief councilor said this though, she said "maybe it was the most honest thing she could say". " I was afraid, if it can happen to you, it can happen to anyone".

Early December is upon us. Mike was born on a Sunday at 1:10pm. Mike died on a Sunday, the call telling us came around 1:10pm. For 29 years, 6 months we had an Angel passing through.

I went to Hell and you didn't leave me there.

I want to thank-you for that.

till next time.