Things that Come in Threes

There was a knock at the front door. Mum didn’t open the door to strangers, especially at night. The stranger on the doorstep asked for something called a donation. Toys for children who had none. Mum was deep in her spiritual training and said “yes” immediately.

She walked into the bedroom saying “Bring Clownie and Gingerbread Boy.” I thought she wanted to show my two best friends to someone. I was a little embarrassed. The toys were gifts from my grandmother. Big stuffed toys as tall as I was. My safe place was between the two of them behind the big bed.

“Bring them out” she continued. She told me that the stranger wanted to take toys to children who had nothing to play with. I offered a few of the others that were lying on the floor. I hadn’t cleaned up yet from today’s adventures. “No” she insisted. “Clownie and Gingerbread Boy”.

I couldn’t believe she meant it. They meant borrow, right? My friends would be back soon? “You shouldn’t be so attached to things, sweetheart.” “You took my friends!” I shouted at her. She sent me to bed. Love is not sacrifice.

What I learned that night was that anything I loved would be lost, stolen, sacrificed, or die. Betrayed, I bought in. That language is taken from an N.E.T. manual on pathological emotions. (symptom-causing agreements) My trigger: perceived betrayal. Something I have taken to heart in every possible way.

…

“Mum, I forgot to bring money with me today. I have to stay after school for musical tryouts. Could you make a few minutes to drop something off at the office so I can eat?” “What is it you need?” she sniffled. “Mum, what’s wrong?”“Nothing,” she answered, trying harder not to weep.

“Have I done something? Is something wrong with one of the kids?” I have a brother and sister much younger than I am and we referred to them that way, Mum and I. The kids. “No, no. Nothing like that.”

“Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?” At this point my psychic disast-o-meter was off the charts. I knew it was bad. Whatever it was.

“Go to your next class.” She’d heard the bell ring through the payphone connection. “I’ll bring something over before your lunch period.”

“Thanks…Mum??” She started to weep again. “It’s nothing. When will you be home?” “Later than usual. Tryouts don’t start till four. I will find a ride.” Mum had two toddlers at her heels. She had no time to collect me from school, especially at their dinner and bed times. My request for cash in the middle of the day was asking a lot. Too much, actually, but I would have expected exasperation, not tears.

I dashed to my next class, taking my seat as the late bell sounded. The rest of my day happened and I forgot. I forgot to check at the office for money until five minutes before tryouts. Too late to eat.

I was busy rehearsing during my lunch period so it didn’t register how hungry I was until my stomach began to rumble. During my solo. I wouldn’t get the part. The judges asked me to stand for chorus. Again.

Tryouts are always fun though. The outtakes better than what anyone did well. I grew up with all things music and looked forward to sharing the funny bits at home.

It was well after dark when I arrived. Everyone had eaten. Mum and Dad were sitting in the family room. “Sit down” Dad said, in the tone of voice that meant business. Mum plastered a smile on her face and asked how tryouts had gone. Did I think I had the part? I laughed and said “Not a chance. My voice cracked on that high note and my stomach was singing louder than I was.”

Dad interrupted with “Well, it’s good that you’re going to get to do these things in life.” Mum cut him off. “Oh please. Don’t do it that way.” The energy in the room went from strange to icy. Dad cleared his throat, never a good sign. “I have something to tell you” he began. I wanted to be anywhere but in that room. “Alix died today.”

My sister started to wail at the top of her lungs. “She isn’t dead! She can’t be dead! You’re lying!” Alix was my best friend. We’d grown up together. She was also the sister my sister wished she’d had. She said so at every possible opportunity. I looked the question at my Father.

He hesitated, then “…You know Alix has always had a bit of physical difficulty. She was never as strong as you are. Was. Today she had what they call an anurism. It burst and she’s gone.” I must have looked shocked and confused. I couldn’t breathe. He continued “It happened this morning. She got ready for school, told her Mother she had a headache, took a sip of orange juice, and blacked out. She never regained consciousness.”

He was saying something else then. Something philosophical about life and going home to God. There were tears in his eyes now, as he looked at me. I’m a year and a half older than Alix. It could have been me. Why does it feel like it’s me?

“DEAD!?” I managed at last. My best friend. My real sister. My confidante. The only one who really knows me. “DEAD?!” “They have her on life support at the hospital.” Then there’s a chance, my wild thoughts told me. “The doctors say she is brain dead. She is a vegetable. There is nothing they can do. The family has to decide…” I couldn’t hear anything else. I couldn’t listen.

My stomach rumbled again and Mum asked if I had eaten anything today. I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember. I didn’t want to remember anything. “DEAD??”

Alix and her Father, the professor, returned from a university term afloat a few weeks ago. We’d barely had the chance to catch back up. Nine months of post cards from their ship and the exotic ports they had visited. We’d only seen each other a few times. She had only managed to use the ship’s phone once to call me when they crossed the international date line. She had to kiss dead fish as part of some sort of hazing ritual and that was worth the call! I wanted pictures.

I smiled at the memory, tasting the salt of my own tears. “What?… What?…” “What happens now?” Mum spoke the words I couldn’t form. Her family would decide, a few days later, to pull the plug. There was no other real choice. The funeral would happen the following week, on a school day.

For two weeks I couldn’t eat. I hardly spoke to anyone. My heart wasn’t broken, it had left me. Part of me missing in action and the shock was swallowing me whole. I was numb to everything.

My sister’s hysterics continued. I couldn’t stand it. “You’re not crying for her, you’re crying for yourself,” I whispered. I was accusing her of selfishness and she knew it. “Death isn’t an end. The body goes and the Spirit…” “Shut up!” she screamed. “You didn’t love her! You couldn’t love her and say that!” I walked away. From everything and everyone. I knew what love was. She was my friend.

I went through the motions during school hours. I refused to show up for lessons and meetings. I didn’t have to say anything. One look at my face and Mum called to cancel.

One afternoon I was coming downstairs to the kitchen to get a glass of water. I don’t know how long I had been fasting. I didn’t care. At the bottom of the stairs I came face to face with Alix’s father. He was asking Dad to be a pallbearer. We stood and stared at each other for a few minutes. “Hi” I whispered. “Hello MaryBeth,” he answered. He was trying not to weep. We were so close. He looked at me and saw his dead daughter in my eyes. I ran back upstairs. It was a Friday and I didn’t have to be anywhere so I hid. I snuck out to the bathroom when no one was around. I played our favorite songs over and over. I broke the Gordon Lightfoot album across my knee. I helped Mum with the kids when she asked me to. I pushed my brother’s pram around the drive, singing to him, as I always did. I retreated deep inside.

Mum got after me about practicing the piano. I would sit down at the keyboard and my hands would be too heavy to lift. “Shock and depression” I overheard someone say. “She’ll come out of it”.

I wasn’t anywhere to come out from. I wanted to go with Alix. I wanted to be away from all this. She had known me. She had made life on this world a little bit ok. If someone had asked me if I thought I couldn’t live without her I would have laughed. What does that even mean? Stupid question. We both hated monopoly. Needing a ‘get out of jail free’ card meant you were stupid enough to land in jail. Who would do that? She’d gotten her card and I had to stay behind.

The day of the funeral I went to school all dressed up. I arrived a little early, as usual, meeting my friends before classes in our spot outside the choir room. No one noticed me standing there in my dress shoes, saying nothing. I hadn’t talked much lately. I wandered off to class.

I don’t know what they thought of my behaviour. I don’t remember telling them anything about my other life. It would have seemed rude to let them know they were second-best, somehow. I was always odd anyway. Let them keep thinking that.

The family collected me from school in time to drive to the service. I clenched my teeth and vowed to get through it. At the end of his address, the minister recited a poem Alix had written to her shipmates. She had set it to music. I didn’t know she was learning to play guitar on that trip. She wanted to surprise me so we could play together. The last line of the poem read “… thank you for being my friend.” I felt the wet on my cheeks before I could gasp a breath. Thank you too, I thought. Goodbye. The minister followed the casket down the center aisle, stopping to put his hand on my shoulder for a second. “She knows” he whispered. I knew that. I could feel her in the air, the flowers, her poetry. I never thought to ask her to visit me in her non-physical form. I knew she needed to move on. I would encourage her as I had always done.

In the parking lot of the church, two of our friends were running and laughing. How could they? One of them was my other closest friend. We had been the ‘fearsome threesome’ in our community. If one of us took a lesson or did something new, the others did too. Not anymore. Not ever again.

Amy was into her own things. She wanted to be a professional figure skater. I studied ballet for years, but dancing on ice? Fun, but not a ‘job’ I wanted. I loved the speed and the flow. Practicing the figures bored me. Her dream was taking her in other directions. Mine was about to as well.

I buried more than my friend that day, though it would take years to realize it. I buried a piece of my heart. That piece was open to receiving love. That piece knew how to share dreaming and to feel love as play. It was the piece I had come here to create in a whole new way.

A month after I met my Teacher, I had a dream. In the dream, I saw Alix. She was on a playing field, part of some kind of drill team, marching and dancing. The kind of thing she wanted to do but her body wouldn’t let her. She had been beautiful, but not strong. I ran across the playing field, grabbing her by the shoulders. “You’re here! You’re not dead!” I shouted in her ear. “Well what did you think?!” she laughed, and hopped back into formation. I woke myself up laughing. Well, of course. Where had I been?

…

“The wedding will be outside of Boston.” Amy sounded thrilled. She and Mitch had been seeing one another for long enough that I wasn’t surprised. She had moved to St. Louis to be with him when he finished law school. I helped her to pack up her grandmother’s flat and load her own things in the UHaul truck the night before she left. Her Father had come down from New York to help. He gave us a moment, before pulling the truck out of my parking lot. I’ll remember that hug the rest of my life. It was the last time I saw my friend.

“I’m moving to Boston next month!” I echoed her joy. “I can be there!” Amy’s Mother brought her from the hospital to my playpen when we were infants together. We drifted apart in high school, became close again halfway through university. Now we spoke at least once a week. She was teaching at a private school in St. Louis, living with her now husband-to-be.

Two years ago I told her I was leaving my boyfriend and moving to LA. She responded by putting the phone down for a minute. The next thing I heard was Amy jumping up and down, yelling “Yes! Yes! Whoo-hoo! Yes! Whooooooo!” I laughed with her when she got back on the line. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it” she giggled.

Today she told me she is getting married in June and I will be able to be there. Life is good.

I mentioned it to my Teacher and he laughed. “Well, that’s convenient!” he winked. “I can come to Boston for you.” Two weeks later he asked me to work in his office and coordinate the summer center meetings in Boston. That meant… The wedding. The June meetings were the weekend of the wedding. I couldn’t say no to my one remaining friend. I definitely couldn’t say no to my Teacher. The choice was horrifying and I knew what I had to do. I quadruple-checked the dates and schedules to see if there might be some way I could do both. Impossible.

Cringing, I made the phone call. “Hi, I have lots of news” she began. “Me too”. She went quiet. She knows that tone of voice. “ I can’t be there” I told her. “I have to work. If I don’t show up I lose my job.” “The whole weekend?” she asked. “Yes.” That was true, on the surface, but it was more than that. I was making a life choice.

I chose my Teacher. I chose to be there to support his work and my evolution instead of being there to support her joy. I was angry that I couldn’t do both, but I knew what I needed. She asked one thing. “If there is any possibility, would you try to come?” I knew there was no way. I said “yes”. That was true. Had there been a way I would have made it happen.

In meditation that night, I felt Amy’s disappointment and the depth of my decision. She has chosen her life and I have chosen mine. I need to be where I am, doing what I’m doing. I need to let this go. I’m letting that life go. I took a deep, conscious breath and let go.

She sent me wedding photos and we talked on the phone. We were both busy and it wasn’t quite the same. Months later I got the call.

I woke up from an upsetting dream the morning before. Odd impressions of Amy’s father and sister trying to contact me. They seemed upset. I didn’t have current contact information for either of them so I was at a bit of a loss. I tried Amy’s home phone. No answer.

I’m sitting at my word processing station in downtown Boston. It’s late and there isn’t much to do tonight. The legal typing pool is in the center of the Pru building and has no windows. No street lamps or traffic to distract us from our work. Not that it matters this late at night. If no more work comes in from late court, the night manager will let us off early. I hope not. I need the money. I’m going to computer school in the mornings. Afternoons, nights and weekends I’m working whatever temp jobs I can find.

School finishes soon and I’m planning to leave Boston. Jobs are better elsewhere. Too many MIT nerds for too few jobs. I won’t stand a chance. I’ve disconnected my phone and other services, preparing my departure.

I check my answering service and there is yet another message from my parents. This time it’s from Dad. “Hi Mary. We haven’t heard from you in two weeks (not that odd, sometimes it’s months) and we need to talk. Your Mother has left you several messages.”

Your Mother. That expression wasn’t good news. He’s upset. I banked on the non-existent workload and picked up the phone. Dad accepted the collect charges, then spent several minutes telling me off. How dare I be so hard to contact? Mum was furious.

She ended her tirade with “Well I suppose you don’t care that your best friend is dead.” Dad interrupted her. “Amy’s family have been asking us how to contact you. They wanted you to speak at the service.” “Of course,” I said, still not quite understanding. “Well it was today” Mum sniped. “Things come in threes, you know, and we couldn’t contact you!” That explained her anger. A second member of the ‘fearsome threesome’ had turned up dead. My turn.

“I’m fine Mum” I soothed her fears. “Better than that. Tell me what I need to do.” “Come home! Why can’t you come home?” “The funeral was today?” I asked. “Would you give me the phone numbers please?” Then, after the fact, “What happened?” Amy was the least suicidal person I’d ever known. Had she been ill and didn’t tell me?

Dad answered me. “She was driving back to school, after an ice storm. She was in charge of their musical productions and there was a performance that night. She hit a patch of ice on a bridge and slid off the overpass into the lake. The police told the family that death was instantaneous. She hit her head on the steering wheel.” They always say that, I thought.

No wonder she didn’t leave me a message to tell me how the show was going! Poor Mitch! And I had missed everything. Promising to phone the family the next day, I hung up the phone. The typing pool was silent. Everyone was staring at me. “Someone close to you?” the manager asked. “Yes” I nodded. “Go ahead and leave if you’d like to. I’ll make sure they pay your whole shift tonight.” “Oh that’s too kind” I started to say. She waved me off. “Will you be all right getting home?”

I had parked underground beneath the building. It was an easy drive out to Concord. I nodded as she helped me into my coat. I don’t remember her name but I do recall her kindness.

I didn’t weep until the next day. Amy’s youngest sister answered the phone and I burst into tears. “We love you Mary” she said. “You too” I answered. It was an old joke, her name being Mary as well. She laughed and said she would get her mother. We chatted for a few minutes as I expressed my condolences and regrets. I asked if I should contact Mitch and she told me it would be best to wait. He’s devastated.

So was I. The survivor guilt was almost unbearable. I had chosen my new life. I had abandoned her. A little melodramatic, don’t you think? The inner reminder stopped me. My Teacher had given me a timeout from his office and the friend I’d thrown over for him had died. My fault. It had to be. I’ve done everything wrong!

Look at that.

Look at what? Her death is your fault because you let her go? You think you were responsible for her time on the planet? Is this going to be like the Atlantis thing where you feel responsible? You couldn’t persuade others not to do make their choices? How arrogant is that? How ARROGANT are you being?

“Okay Enough!” I shouted out loud. How big is that ego? The piece refusing to let go? Wrong direction.

Show me the right direction then. I surrendered. Stop blaming yourself. Feel the hurt. Feel the starchild you were in this body. Feel her alienation and loneliness. “Nooo!”

“I’m past that. I’ve shut that down” I said to the Infinite. That last part was accurate, SHE stated. You need to come home and let me love you. “I can’t do that. I’m a warrior. I have to be strong. I committed to this. You have always been strong. You have always been powerful. Your commitment is to Me. Come home now and be love.