Lessons I Learned After a Friend’s Death

Dealing with the death of someone dear to us is never easy, to say the absolute least. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things we’ll go through in our lives. While our first initial instinct is to close ourselves off from the world, likely as a failed attempt to protect ourselves from any more pain, I can say that’s an incredibly unhealthy way to deal with death. If we’re able to fight that urge to close ourselves off and instead, allow ourselves to stay open to the lessons that present themselves around us (and trust me, there will be many lessons that appear to us if we’re open to receive them; there are many lessons I learned), it can help us through and change the way we experience the hard time we are going through.

To give you a little more context, my best friend just tragically died at the age of 34. It’s something I am still healing from and am still having to even come to terms with. When something like this happens, it’s easy to get angry, blame god, exclaim that the world isn’t fair and that only the good die young. Most people, myself included, want to close off from everyone. I, of course, found myself doing this in the beginning. But then, as I had to put together the funeral slideshow with her husband, I began running through so many valuable memories I had with her, and it allowed me to open up, break down the walls I was putting up, and heal. Perhaps, the thing that brought me the strongest healing during this time, was finding and learning lessons that knowing my friend, Marisa, brought me. I knew I was a different person because I knew her, and her death helped me to learn more about myself and the world around me, too. And while it’s impossible to stay positive in such a horrible situation, it at least provided a bit of comfort to know that she was still teaching and guiding me in my life after her death.

While going through the photos of my friend, I found a picture she had sent me years ago of an essay she wrote in the sixth grade. This essay happily explained that her most cherished memory at that time was when she started school in Virginia and I invited her to sit with me. After that moment, we instantly became inseparable, and in her essay, she described this small act of kindness as something that changed her life.

What Marisa wrote about, that Malorie who was open and willing to invite anyone and everyone to sit with her, she affected people. She made a difference, but I quickly realize that wasn’t the Malorie I am today. She’s inside me, for sure, but after years of hurt and the scars that come from daily life, I have become more closed off, more jaded, and less likely to invite people to, well, sit with me. While for years I have been seeing this vulnerability as a weakness, re-reading Marisa’s essay after her death showed me that there is no weakness in being vulnerable and kind to people. That unapologetic kindness I used to have changed my best friend’s (and my own) life for the better. It was a valuable gift that I had allowed to become tainted over the years. And that’s the Malorie I should strive to be, for Marisa, for my best friend who is no longer with me in this physical world.

It was a somewhat magical revelation to have in a dark time, and it most definitely brought a glimmer of hope and comfort to me knowing that Marisa was still teaching me things about myself, how to be a better person, how to be who I used to be, even after her death.

So, I can say from honest experience, when we lose someone dear to us, it can be easy to close off. The more challenging part, which I encourage you to do, is to stay open and ready to receive the lessons that need to come your way. Hearing these lessons can be a final act of kindness you give to your loved one who has passed. These lessons will come if you are open to receive them, and they can help make your life better and more meaningful as you move forward, one small step at a time.