RIP

I had a long conversation with a friend at work about what it was like to experience the death of a close friend, in my case, the death of two people very close to my heart. I can't really describe it, I think it has made me more zen like and more accepting that I have little to no control over the world. If a 31 year old can drop dead and an eternal optimist can be brought to his knees in a matter of weeks by cancer I don't really have much to say about the ability of life to resist death.

I wonder about my own death, will it be painless and quick or something else? Will there be a point at which many of my peers drop quickly and if I make it through I have many more years ahead of me? In my mind, it's just not worth thinking about.

When my dad first died I really didn't know if I believed my ideas about death: that a quick, and relatively painless death brought me comfort or that I would continue to take great comfort in knowing that I squeezed every ounce of love out of my relationship with my dad. Seven months later I still take comfort in those things.

With Adam, I feel different. Adam was my source of good times, of wildly, stuff of legends good times and he brought a smile to the face of everyone he met. It's not to say that I won't ever have fun again but Adam made the most mundane things enjoyable and memorable and most of the moments that I felt the most alive were with him. I could say anything in front of adam and he could say anything in front of me. I feel really sorry for me because he brought me so much joy.

He was the first person who took me aside when I messed up and confronted me about my failings. He knew when to lie to me (sure, he's cute) but we had a couple of moments where he was brutally honest and it was incredibly instructive. When we decided to hire him as our real estate agent (a dicey move we know) I trusted him completely because we had had these moments of truthfulness. Throughout our friendship we had selectively decided to be completely honest with one another - wedding stuff, paint choices, weight gain, and cooking- and I trusted that.

Adam was also always calm and confident, except for all things Martha and cute boys, so if was so funny to hear his dad tell me about how nervous he was to be our real estate agent and to be in my wedding. He never showed a crack in the fascade but I find this post-humous nervousness to be really sweet.

I guess, unlike my dad, I hadn't squeezed every ounce of friendship out of Adam, mostly because I thought we would continue to grow old and fat together, continue to contemplate becoming parents, and figure out how to never repeat the sins of our past (triathalon boy and moving to places other than NYC).

I think I'm still really numb from my dad's death and that Adam's will sort of blend in with the rest of whatever is going on in my head. I had been in denial until yesterday when I saw his body and as I said to Ab and Kate "He's definatly dead" but I can still hear his voice from our conversation on Thursday, his laugh, and his funny tanned stubbly chin. Sometimes it seems like too much to bear but I have faith that the world, my world, will continue and that I really need to continue to try and live my life to the fullest, even if I turn into a hallmark greeting card.