Talent Ambianced1

Time Passages

By Ambianced1 | 2008

Its a curious thing; time. It seemed like forever since I was a teenager longing to be grown, clear of acne, free from parents rule. It seemed like forever until yesterday. Yesterday, time came catapulting from the past and drug me back against my will.

Yesterday I found out my best friend from high school and years after had passed away from cancer and I was not prepared.

Being prepared has been a staple in my life. I find comfort in having a plan for the unexpected. Whether it be having a clean house so the unexpected visitor won't see a mess, plenty of groceries in the cabinets and fridge to accomodate anyone who stops in for a meal, clothes ironed and hung in case I should need to be ready to go in a hurry. Preparedness is more than a boy scout motto for me, its a mind set and it has always worked until recently.

I learned last May 9th that I would never be prepared enough. I learned that preparedness is more than a clean house, ready to prepare meals, clothes hung neatly waiting...Preparedness is a state of mind that I found myself unable to attain. It was a lesson I thought I had learned over the past year.

Losing the phatom ideal that I ever had control seemed like something I had accepted but in my ever scheming mind, I found myself trying to make myself prepared to lose my home, prepared to lose a family member, prepared to lose my life, a pet, prepared to lose it all...I foolishly prepared for each and every possible reality that would be a side effect from the accident. I deliberately looked at each worst case scenario and in my mind lost it, felt the loss, accepted the loss so I would never be caught off guard again.

I felt confident that in my acceptance of each possible loss, my faith would remain strong, my desire to serve; resilient , and my ability to withstand; undoubtable. I had covered all the bases or so I had thought until yesterday.

Yesterday I realized there is no human way to prepare for everything. I had not considered the loss of my friend and I was once again sent reeling into a state of shock, sadness and loss. And in its cruel way time barged through the cracks and crevices of my mind and demanded memories of the girl I use to know and the girl I use to be.

When I was 15, 16, and so on, she was everything to me. She was my secret vault, she was my cohort in so many escapades, she was my drinking buddy, she was my laughing partner, she was my ear for gossip of high school soap operas, she was the beauty and the brains, she was the driver, she was the one constant in a teenage world of contradiction. She was a warrior who defended, a soft powder puff full of tears and emotion, a bag of tricks, a seductrice, a temptress, yet captured a purity that filled her baby blue eyes. She was my staple, my crying post for the injustices my parents would instill, she was my chariot in the form of a mint green Pinto, she was my social butterfly and we filled each others lives.

All those feelings and all those memories came rushing back and I couldn't fathom how a girl of 16 could be dead..how that person who was so alive could have succombed. But the present showed its face and stood to challenge the past and cruely reminded me that she nor I were 20 or 16 any longer and she though once the most important friend in the world to me now had been absent from my life for 25 years and time had set its course and the diseases of humanity had ravaged her body. A cancer had dared to attack her and in her human state even with all the medical knowledge that fought for her, she had lost the battle and I was unprepared. Though I cried "Not her! Not this week of all weeks"; yet all the pleas in the world could not hold back the devestating blow.

So last night I returned to our old stomping grounds and saw people with whom I had been so close to and saw the wear of time on thier faces and the ravages of time on thier spirits. I reentered with the mindset of a 20 year old and was faced with the undenialable truth that time does not stand still and time to many, has been destructive. The people from my youth were old. They were tired and they were worn. For most, my recognition of them was impossible without hints from others standing near.

So with that reality in place, I approached the casket, embraced her parents and gazed at my friend and was mercifully aware that the woman that laid there was not her. The woman that laid there was of no resemblance to my friend. This woman was small, frail and aged beyond her years by the ravages of the disease...My friend was still beautiful, young but wiser, content without reservation, accomplished in her career and a joy to all who knew her.

So upon leaving, I hugged the little brother that was only 10 last I saw him and he gazed at me just like he had when he was 10, eyes full of 10 year old puppy love and happy that I had come. My other old friends whispered as to how how I looked so young and how tall I had become as they became aware of who I actually was. I was Ora who no longer had traces of acne, I was the Ora who had lived large and had escaped the entrapment of that dying small town. I had come home and neither I recognized it nor did home recognize me. Time had marched on and left me lost in a place that she and I had once ruled in some small way.

So today I will sit and transport myself to her funeral which I am unable to attend. I will sit and think of the woman in the casket and know that she with her failing painful health was no longer suffering and I will be sorrowful for her family and I will feel relief for the woman.
But my mind drifts to the friend of my youth and I am reminded of our haunts: the second old house, the Merciers, The Holte's farm, The Big T burger shack, the first old house, Danny , Lonnie , Mickey, Kevin, and Billy. I will remember her mother Fannie who always thought we were up to something but could never prove it, I will remember sneaking out of her window and hopping into our friends four wheel drives parked in the medium of the highway waiting to rescue us to a much needed party filled with laughter, alcohol, good friends and the sounds of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchett, Foghat, Blackfoot, Little Feet, and the Allman Brothers filling the air and I will remember the loss that I wasn't prepared for and be thankful for the awesome friend I have regained.

In Loving Memory of Cynthia Lynne Borum. 4/12/62 - 5/5/08