January 16th, 2008. Joan Meyer.

“The heart stops briefly when someone dies
a quick pain as you hear the news
& someone passes
from your outside life to inside. Slowly
the heart
adjusts
to its new weight, & slowly everything
continues, sanely.”
Ted Berrigan

This week I've been worried about my body. I tend to worry about my body, in general, but this week I've been more anxious than usual. I've been convinced that there is a cancer lurking. It's been keeping me up at night.

I had a therapist once who told me she believes we store the memories of things in our bodies and, even if we don't register it, we might have strong emotions around a period of time related to a traumatic incident. For instance, this week I have been irrationally worried about cancer.

Three years ago today, Joan Meyer passed away from breast cancer. She died in her home. She died in her sleep. Her daughter had plenty of time to say goodbye.

How much time is enough time?

Joan was like a surrogate mother to me when I was in my teens. I lived with her and her daughter, my friend Nicole, and my sisters and my boyfriend when I was on the edge of turning eighteen. She was my informal foster parent, a woman who chose to act as my mother when my mother refused that duty. Joan helped me celebrate my eighteenth birthday by making sure I did all of the childish things I could think of doing.

I knew she was going to die. I got a phone call from my sister about a week before Joan passed. My sister urged me to fly down to California to see her. I didn't think I could do it. I told myself I couldn't afford it; I couldn't take time off work. Really, I couldn't bear the thought of seeing her. In real life. Dying.

I wrote her a letter. Words have always felt safer. I thought if I put into words what she meant to me, it would be fine.

Only, I forgot that I'm a perfectionist. I kept editing and editing and editing. The day she died, I was still editing. It was a fucking two page letter. I should have sent it to her. It didn't matter if it was exactly what I wanted to say. At the time, I thought I had to get it right. Maybe I still think that.

That was a serious turning point for me. I started to remember that we die. Every one of us. I started to write seriously. I enrolled in school, I quit fucking around. I started to think seriously about what I wanted my life to look like and I stopped compromising.

Today, I'm spending ninety percent of my time doing things that I love. I have Joan to thank for that. So, today I will leave the house and focus on two thoughts.

One: Live like today is the last day you'll ever have.

Two: Say it. Say it right now. You won't get another chance to say it.