Marilee died today. Those are the only three words I can come up with to explain why this day is different than other easily-forgotten Mondays. I had hoped and prayed it would be years, months, weeks or even days til I had to speak those three dreaded words, Marilee… died… today. It wasn’t until 4 pm today that I said them, and only then did I know it was reality… I had typed them… texted them… thought them… but speaking them was so different. It made them real. It made her gone. It made me broken. Never again will I say them. No other day will they be relevant….. just today, November 6th, 2006… Marilee died today.

I was in a church budget meeting yesterday when Heather called me. When I texted her back and she simply responded, “Call me as soon as you can”, I knew. I knew something was off. So with a sick stomach I called Heather. “Are you sitting down?…Are you driving?… Marilee’s taken a turn for the worst… 24-72 hours…” I just heard small bits of pieces of what she said. All I could think of was how we were losing M and how I wasn’t going to get to see her again in December as I had planned. I prayed for miracles and healings and for things to be different and I went to Heather’s. Why Heather’s? Cause it was safe… because she understood and because it was easier to wait together. So we waited… for 6 hours we tried to stay busy, talked of her til the tears wouldn’t allow us to speak, and just pretended it wasn’t happening and when it became late enough we knew her family wouldn’t call. At almost midnight, I went home.

At 4:09 am, my phone rang. It was Heather. The end had come. I can’t quite explain the mixture of emotions I went through in a 3 minute conversation. Relief that her pain was over, gut-wrenching sadness, and the small fear of having to expose the secret, of having to sit in a room and face your peers and tell them she wasn’t returning, ever. For three months we’d walked around feeling like a 15 ton weight was on our shoulders. We had lied and told countless mistruths and done everything to protect Marilee’s last wish and keep her secret. I had worried for months about all of those who would not get to say goodbye because she refused visitors and pretended as if she would soon return. How would people get their closure? How would they make their peace? Those questions kept me up the rest of the morning. I showered, laid out clothes, and just sat there. Sometimes that’s just all you can do.