the glory of love
June 26, 2004 � 3:55 a.m.

First Entry Today

Today�s Weather: Downpour of sadness

I think something happens to a person when they are the last friendly face someone sees before something tragic happens. It changes you. Even if the situation has nothing to do with you, it makes you feel guilty. It makes you constantly wonder if there could have been anything you could have said or done to make things turn out differently�to have made those last moments more meaningful�to have said or done what is really in your heart instead of holding back like we are honed to do.

Today was one of those situations and I was the last friendly face before something life altering happened to a friend of mine.

Lola�dear, sweet, lovable, smiling Lola�rushed from work and the last thing I remember doing was biting my tongue to keep from saying something I knew to be true�but would have been completely inappropriate for me to say to her in the condition she was already in.

Later, I got a phone call, and before I even heard the voice, I was gripped with terror and the tears rolled down my face.

Through wrenching sobs that I could barely understand, I heard a frail voice cry my name and then drop the news.

Lola�s father died today.

Her mom had called her while she was at lunch and told her he was acting strange and then passed out. She was freaking out so bad that Jack came in to get me to go and calm her down. I went to her, and she wasn�t as bad, but crying quietly as she told me about the call. She looked at me from behind her dark shades, and with her cheeks stained with tears, she said, �I don�t know what I would do if anything were to happen to my dad.� She sent me to her desk to get her keys and as I stood inside, I knew without a doubt he was gone. I knew it as sure as I know my name that he was dead, and when I went back out to her, all I could do was stand there and suck down a cig I had brought out with me and try to make idle chit chat to keep her mind from spinning. �I love you, fee-ah,� she had kind of laughed and I soberly looked at her and told her I loved her, too. I said everything would be alright�I begged her not to worry�I told her not to feel guilty over the situation and her last call to him in which she told him she didn�t have any money to give him to help him out. He was sick, you see, had been sick for a long time, and Lola had been his primary care taker. She loved her dad like it was an obsession, and the bond they had was something I can only dream of having with a father�as I can only dream of having a father. Before she got in the car, I told her to call me if she needed anything, and to let me know how he was�but I knew how he was.

He had died before she made it there to see him. When she called, she was damn near hyper ventilating as she sobbed so hard her voice sounded as if it dripped with blood. And I sat there at my desk, crying as she was crying, telling her to breathe�telling her I am here for her�and begging her to go see him before they took him away. She said they had already taken him down to the morgue and that she couldn�t go see him, couldn�t bear to see him, and the way she cried that out sliced my soul in two.

And now, I am here, riddled with guilt over things I couldn�t have possibly changed�over words I wanted to say but didn�t�over things I wanted to do but couldn�t. Truth is, I haven�t known her really long and we aren�t SUPER close�but close. She always has a smile and cheery words and makes me laugh when all I want to do was crawl into myself and cry myself to death. She IS happiness personified�and seeing her tears�hearing her sobs�imagining her pain has turned my world inside out. I want to do so many things and say so many things, but I don�t feel as if I have the right. My soul is breaking and my hands are shaking and I can�t even think straight over a girl who�s new to my world, whose father just forever left hers. I am here vowing to the walls and stars that I will do whatever I have to do to help her through this�and not fully just because I care�but because I am completely selfish.

I say I am selfish because I want to do any and everything to help her and make her feel better�because it will make me feel better to know I have done something to help. And that�s the truth. That�s what we do. Humans rally in a crisis not because we have this selfless need to help, but because we have this selfish need to help and feel better about ourselves for doing so. It�s not a bad thing, though�it�s just something to be realized for what it is. I say if we were all a bit more selfish, we�d be happier people. Making people happy just to make ourselves feel better about ourselves is the way to go. Every since I heard the news, I have been acting like a selfish, spoiled brat. I finished her work for her, argued for her to have more bereavement time from work, begged to have her workload changed, sat around remembering my grandmother�s death and the sight of her body, daydreaming about how I would fucking lose it if something ever happened to the Queen or my brother or my god son, thinking of poems to write for her, things to say to her, things to do for her, ways to help her gather herself back together again�ways to make myself feel her despair and feel needed�so I can see her smile again the guilt can be erased from my heart. Selfish, selfish, me.

I want everyone that reads this, to go and be a selfish ass today. Go out and make as many people smile that you can. Say every exposing word you can think of to someone you love. Sit around and think about times long gone and people long gone and take that sorrow and energy and use it to drown someone else in happiness�so you can feel happier�so you won�t have anything to regret.

You never really know what will happen after the last time you speak to or see someone. Your last words or actions just might be the most important thing you do for that person. I have learned my lesson. I am going to be one selfish bitch from now on. Lola showed me there is more to life than being scared of it�because you never know when it can be changed or taken.

Live hard and regret nothing or eventually everything just ends up being a regret.

Thank you, Lola�for coming into my life and being such a great friend. I love you, girl.

And thanks to you, Mr. Sykes, for making it all possible.

May you rest in peace.