THE PERIPHERY OF LIFE

Is Where Our Friends Are

Janice Anne Wheeler May 4

Until they’re not, until those friends lose the ultimate SPAR WITH MOTHER NATURE. Until one day you contact them, and they’re gone. Some were gone before you noticed, before anyone told you, before you remembered that it had been a while and you should reach out but you don’t because you are too busy worrying about a future that may never arrive, and then another week goes by, and then a month. And a year.

They definitely remain in the invaluable category of good people you’ve discovered, but you can’t call them anymore. You can’t tell them that they were important. Or how important they were. You expected to see them again, when the opportunity arose, if you wanted to. But you can’t.

A mentor of mine, who shirked neither praise nor brutal truth, didn’t wake up one winter morning. His random phone calls and consistent contact should have been a better lesson.

My BFF from Cornell, US Marine, father, brother, chef, wrote “This year, I’m coming sailing.” He did not. His big heart didn’t get him past fifty-eight.

There are others I hadn’t said goodbye to because it didn’t seem necessary, shouldn’t have been necessary, yet. A charming confidant died suddenly, camping in the high mountains of Southwestern Colorado. I can’t imagine a better ending, but I didn’t know there had been one.

I’m having trouble describing this feeling; the heavy stomach quiver when you know you could have done something differently. You’re not sure it would have made a difference, but you desperately wish for the opportunity to find out. The opp for a do-over.

Each unique individual, rich or poor, conservative or liberal, well-read or work-hardened, taught, learned, gave, took, hurt, nurtured, and were valuable enough to spend precious time getting to know, understand, and appreciate regardless of differences, idiosyncrasies and ironies. Add those fine folks to the strong main characters of a small family and a transient life, and my periphery is a diverse treasure. In my tiny sliver of the world, they all hold a spot. I’m thrilled to say that there are more than I can even name; I’ve been lucky enough to engage and retain some of the best humans I know.

I can only hope that those I retain feel the same. Most importantly, they made me who I am and we know where we stand.

Another heart gave out with its owner working on his passion in his favorite place. Halfway through the five day, big wind retrieval of a his strong widow, little dog and aging sailing vessel, Mother Nature offered a couple hours of freedom to contemplate this, to consider the people on the periphery. I had seen this woman just a few times in my life, now we are linked. She had always been half of a couple, and while the sadness was palpable, her stories were of lives well lived.

Sophie

“You have no idea what you’ve done for me,” she told us, dropping her stoic demeanor for a split second and holding tightly to her furry best friend. After one plane ride, two taxis, three days and twenty-two hours crossing the Gulf Stream at a rolling gallop, her words made our efforts wholly worthwhile. She thanked us again as we returned to work here on STEADFAST, and I think extensively about the life she will create when she returns home without her partner of forty-four years. **

These deaths, let’s be honest, won’t affect the trajectory of my life; their souls are simply gone. Gone from this world, anyway, as we know it; I want to believe they’re watching us from some other incarnation. We may not like it, but we adjust.

The losses of friends, both close and peripheral, are stacking up, a smack-on-the-head reminder to enjoy what we have, help others along the way, and accept with strong grace our challenges rather than becoming angry at the unfairness of it all. I’m working on it. ~J

The sun sets over the Gulf Stream. 4.25.25

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I’m grateful we’re all part of multiple peripheries in a world where connectedness may just be going by the wayside.

**For a little more background on our trip to help a friend, you can read:

THE POWER OF A SINGLE PHONE CALL Janice Anne Wheeler   ·   Apr 9 Read full story