A Journey Through Grief: How My Best Friend’s Death Taught Me to Live
“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ― Rose Kennedy
This past April, I wrote the hardest piece I have ever had to write. It was my Uncle Moses’ eulogy. Moses was my favorite uncle and one of the dearest people in my heart. He succumbed to cancer of the liver at age 51, less than a month before his birthday. But his was not the first eulogy I wrote, nor was he the first loved one I lost. I have lost too many loved ones to count. Death is never an easy thing to handle, especially for someone as sentimental as me and as a person who loves HARD.
From my early 20s to now, I have lost several loved ones ranging from ages 14 to 72 (my grandfather included) to various types of cancer. When I was 26, I bade farewell to a close friend from childhood, Lemuel – the first person to teach me tolerance and unconditional love for anyone regardless of their sexual orientation – to AIDS. A couple of years later, my beloved 14-year-old cousin, Alex, died of a heart attack – two weeks before Christmas. Yes, I have had many moments of donning black dresses, signing books of condolences and being in a funeral march. But the one that haunts me most is when I lost my best friend. At the time, we were giddy teenagers high on life. She was a bit older than me, and to this day, I have not met another person with whom I’ve shared more in common. Read more…
Island Soul City Dreams 