Down Comes the Rain

I'm grieving the deaths of two women who died in the past week, one the younger sister of a woman I was best friends with in elementary school, and one a blogger I never met, but whose words were full of wisdom and knowledge.

M. and I hadn't talked in decades, though our moms were still in touch by email. Last Saturday, my mother received a short cryptic note. M. had been in the hospital since March, with morphine helping her in the end to give her peace, but that she died that morning. I still don't know why or really any other details.

I sent a note to M.'s mother, expressing my sympathies and recalling memories of M., how I'd visit her older sister J. and we'd play with Spirograph in the basement, or with Mandy dolls upstairs on the bunk beds. I'd always remembered M.'s birthday, even when I forgot the birthdays of friends I'd met in more recent years.

M.'s mother emailed back, thanking me for the beautiful reflection. The funeral is Thursday. M. was 33.

I found CancerBaby's blog months ago. I lurked and drank in her posts about living with ovarian cancer and infertility. She was level-headed, an insightful writer, full of anger when justified, but also full of love and joy for her relationships with her loved ones, particularly her mother and husband. Her post about all what her husband had done for her, researching her condition, and how grateful she was brings me to tears every time I read it.

Her friend posted a short time ago after months of silence, saying CancerBaby wasn't doing well, and that her cancer had relapsed. Last week, her friend posted again. CancerBaby had died that morning. She too was 33.

Rain has subsumed the area where I live for days now, around the same time as these two women's deaths. While my town isn't underwater, others nearby are.

It's a cliche and perhaps simplistic thinking to think that the heavens are crying over the passing of these two women far too early in their lives. That the world is crying over the suffering people go through, the sadness we all feel over premature deaths, sickness and anguish.

But it gives me something to cling to, that people who die before their time are missed by something beyond their family and friends. That when bad things happen to good people, they aren't simply a stroke of bad luck, but that something greater mourns for them. That the Universe recognizes the unfairness and the unjustness of the way some things are and continue to be.

I don't know. Maybe it's just raining and global warming and coincidence. But the thought helps soothe the pain of living while mourning those who no longer are.