The Intricate Tangle of Life

Sat in a wonky, warm glow this evening with a gaping hole in this flat and this heart that I am still deciphering.
It was different this time. We knew, when Sarah couldn’t move from her bed, when she couldn’t see for the pain. When she agreed to let me help in ways we’d hoped she’d never need me to. After stabilising the tumours in her body, three crashed into her brain so quickly and unrelentingly that the last few months have been an incomprehensible blur.

And now there’s stillness. Silence. My bloody brilliant friend moved home two weeks ago because she had to, not because she wanted to, which I think was harder for her to process than being told that you don’t have long to live. We’ve normalised conversations around death for three years now, creating light in darkness and cracking jokes through sadness as we shaved heads, shared beds and moved seamlessly from getting tipsy in parks to arranging hospital visits and back again. I’d forgotten that it’s not normal to discuss losing your womb (“they say it like I just left it on the tube”), or to decide what’s for dinner after you’ve finished radiotherapy (“I’m back on the steroids so I’m probably gonna eat your portion too mate”). We weaved it all – the profound, the ridiculous, the ugly, the incredible – into our daily lives and into an extraordinary friendship made up of as many tales of first dates as of lymphatic drainage.

And there’s a lot to be said for that – for acknowledging and articulating your reality without indulging in worry for a future yet to unfold – instead living so vividly in the present as Sarah always has, long before any of this.

I have no idea what it’s like to be in Sarah’s position, in her own unimaginable stillness – and would never claim to. But I do know that reality can make you feel soul-crushingly sad while you laugh your tits off. You can be frustrated and scared for someone while being utterly in awe of them too. Things can be devastatingly tough and really, really joyful. Days can contain everything in their nothingness – 2020 has shown us that. It’s an intricate tangle and I’m not sure why we try so hard to push half of it away. Because doesn’t that make it a whole life?