Thoughts from a Plane
As I write this, I’m flying back home to attend the funeral of a girl I’ve known since elementary school.
I’m thirty years old.
Based on the city that I’m from, someone passing at that age is not necessarily a surprise. However, this girl didn’t die young the way people from normally do when they’re from Pueblo — something drug/alcohol-related, something gang-related, or via some sort of vehicular accident. Her life was taken by cancer. To respect this moment for her family, I won’t use her name. I’ll simply call her “Daisy.”
While never really best friends, I would certainly call us friends. Perhaps not the type of friend that you would call up on a whim for relationship advice, but the type of friend that when you said, “We need to catch up sometime,” you actually meant it. I always had a tremendous level of respect for Daisy. She was extremely smart and driven. She was a pretty girl by any standard. Yet, with all of these qualities, she never needed to be in the spotlight of any room. She had a quiet confidence in that way. She never needed to be popular. If she was — cool. If she wasn’t — cool. Daisy mainly cared about looking out for those close to her and making sure she was the best version of herself. So, when I say that I respected her, I mean that in many ways she was the person I wish I could’ve been. While I consider myself fiercely independent, at my core I know that I’m too much of a people-pleaser to ever rise to the standard of independence Daisy modeled.
Before I left, a friend of mine in Vegas asked me, “If you weren’t that close, then why fly home for the funeral?” I couldn’t really give him a better answer than, “I dunno. It just feels like I need to.” Certainly, I wanted to pay my respects and be there for her husband (who I was also friends with during college); yet, there is a larger underlying reason that I couldn’t really articulate until I was at 30,000 feet. Honestly, I think that Daisy’s death brought me face-to-face with the realization that it’s not just important to tell your family & friends that you love them. It’s important to tell people that you respect how you feel as well.
I wish I had told Daisy years ago that her path, while very different than my own, was something that I always admired from a distance. I wish I’d told her that she made an impact on my life. I wish I had thanked her for modeling courage, leadership, and dedication.
…but I didn’t.
Now I have to live with the fact that I could’ve easily given her that small gift, knowing damn well that I have no excuse as to why I didn’t. And as the pressure in this airplane cabin increases, the weight of that idea has increased as well to include all of the people in my life who I could lose at a moment’s notice that I need to tell.
I think that each of us probably has at least twenty people in our lives that fit a similar mold. Today, I beg you to tell them. Tell them one at a time, and do it privately so that they know it’s genuine. Send an old friend a Facebook message or text. Email a former teacher. Message an author that you admire. Hop on the phone with a grandparent. It can be something simple like, “I just wanted to tell you that I really admired your courage to move away from home back then,” or, “I wish I could be as spontaneous as you.” Whatever you choose as the best medium & message, just make sure you at least do it. Do it to give them that little boost that they might need right now. Do it because they’ve earned it. Do it to make their world a better place, because in some small way, they’ve made yours better.
