My Best Friend Died a Year Ago This Week. This is How I've Accepted It.
Murray Lewis Adams
4/20/64 - 3/7/19
From the moment I realized he wasn’t going to make it, which in retrospect was happening for months before he died, I accepted it.
I cried, and still do.
I miss him.
But when I miss him in a painful way I know it’s because I don’t think I am capable of creating the emotions I want to feel that I felt when he was here.
Could go on and on….
But I didn’t want to make him responsible for my feelings.
I didn’t in Life and I certainly won’t in death.
Who he was in my life and the thoughts I had about him created these feelings.
Who he is in Death and the thoughts I have about him still create these feelings -
This is my process for how I’ve accepted Murray’s sudden death.
It was supposed to happen
How do I know this?
Because it did.
No pretending, imagining otherwise or wishing it different changes this fact.
I don’t think I’m alone on this;
I’ve feared death most of my life. Like FEARED it.
This fear kept me from living.
Death, which no one is exempt from, is our biggest fear.
I think because of what we make it mean.
If we die before we’ve truly lived, we didn’t live to our fullest potential.
If we lose someone before we’ve truly connected with them, we didn’t love to our fullest potential.
Wishing Murray’s death didn’t happen would be believing I didn’t Love him fully while he was here or that I don’t know how to love him while he’s not.
I did and continue to do both of these things.
Could I have made more time and had more experiences with him?
But regretting not having done this doesn’t serve me.
He’s not here to make up for it.
But I can bring his memory onto each new experience I have - and I do.
One example of this is the recent move we made into our new home we’d been building for 9 years;
Murray in Life was witness to this huge project.
He lived it with us.
We didn’t finish it before he died. In fact, the last year after his death is when it really started to come together.
He would’ve LOVED IT.
And he does.
When we moved in last month Murray was there.
He was so proud of us.
He eased the challenges and brought humor to the situation, just as always.
Murray was supposed to die, because he did.
Accepting this has allowed me to have a different relationship with him, a relationship that was supposed to happen.
This moment is all we have
In this moment, right here, I am in my physical form.
I am alive.
This is what I believe.
This believe serves me in living in my physical form.
This is Life.
Murray isn’t here. At least not in physical form.
If I longed for his physical presence, I wouldn’t be in this moment in my physical presence.
I’d miss the presence of those around me.
I’d miss this opportunity to live here now.
This is where everything is created and manifested.
When I accept in each of my moments that Murray isn’t here - I can be in the moment.
I can be present with the memory of him.
I open up to the possibility that he is here in other ways.
Because this is a possibility and I think of him in this way I bring him here with my thoughts.
I’m present with him.
If I bring him here with my thoughts wishing he didn’t die
I wouldn’t be here and I’d miss him being here too.
This moment is all we have to connect with those we’ve lost.
Who I am after experiencing this loss is who I need to be now.
Murray was many things to me.
He was a fixture in our life;
He lived with us.
He shared multiple meals a week in our home
He managed our farm
He was our house sitter
He would always clean the house before we came home - down to the fold on the toilet paper roll.
We felt confident leaving because Murray could manage all the moving pieces in our lives.
He was an Uncle to Our Children - the Third Adult that kept the playing field level
He talked to me like my partner, Sean, didn’t.
We joked he was my second husband.
He was my relief button.
He was the bear hug.
He knew me like no one else.
He can’t be replaced, but what he created with me still grows.
I didn’t know how we would continue without Murray.
But what I’ve learned is that we can.
What Murray offers us, and what we offered him was
What I know now is these are available to me - always.
Murray didn’t give these to me.
We were attracted to each other because we both offer these gifts.
Murray woke a piece of my spirit that continues to grow, not in spite of his death, but because of it.
Realizing that I can continue down my life path and meet other amazing, brilliant, kind, funny and helpful people
That I can fall in love again and again
That there is abundance -
This came from his death.
Thank you Murray.
You always believed in me.
And now I believe in myself more.