Cake For a Dead Man

On Thursday, I am picking up a cake for a dead man.

I do not write much in the way of true details about my personal life on this site. Today I would like to speak briefly about loss. I talked about the death of my cat a long time ago and how I watched her diminish one step at a time; because she was a cat, it was compressed in time. I have watched the same with my mother, as she went from being intelligent, well-read, and a woman who walked for hours and miles a day, getting to know her neighbors, to someone limited now to the same simple conversations on a loop, unable and afraid to walk more than a house or two down, even with her child holding her arm.

We all come to an end, and it is rarely pleasant.

This week, my best friend died.

In a sense, it was sudden. I ordered a cake for his birthday last week to be given to him on Friday. He died within the five days since I ordered it. He was sick with cancer, and we knew it was terminal. So, calling it a surprise is the wrong word. Were we both delusional? Did we push out the reality of the situation, assuming we had forever to talk?

A year ago, the doctors told him he would die with this cancer, not of this cancer. It was not curable, but it was treatable almost indefinitely. Six months ago, they told him he had two years left. Two weeks ago, they said they didn’t know how much time he had left. On Thursday he suffered a cancer-related aneurysm that ruptured, and he never regained consciousness.

I wasn’t done. We had debates open, threads untied and now clipped short. There are conversations we left for the mythical “later.” I had intellectually prepped some questions which we will not start. We’d hugged each other goodbye the week before, planning to meet Friday, two days from now. I’ll see him in a week, at his funeral.

It has changed how I listen to things this week. There are interesting lectures I hear or books I read that I would have talked to him about. But... I don’t get to just slot that conversation in with someone else. That thread is severed. A piece of my life, the relationship of who I was with that person is gone. The understanding of myself that I saw reflected by him.

I am not sure yet what I am trying to say here.

Perhaps it is this. My world shrunk.

You need high quality friends. We all do. Find a person who... intimidates you, in the best possible way; the way a good spouse does, but outside that sphere. Have a friend who will not “yes” you. Make sure they challenge what you think, and that you listen to it. I mean really listen. Don’t become a large language model, having approximations of a conversation that could be had by best-guessing the next word you say. Have a real, deep debate about something only you and that friend, with their life experience, can have. Take notes if you have to, but remember what they say. Real conversation has continuity and breadth and depth. It is not snippets and quips and fast food bite sized simple answers to complex questions.

Listen to the pieces they can give you that you can’t find yourself, and appreciate that this is special. It is not replicable. And appreciate, even when you are healthy, that it is temporary.

Here, as at other times and places, I will freely admit I do not know if I have anything wise to say. Maybe wisdom is just older people passing down what other old people said when they were young and didn’t understand themselves. We repeat it out loud, hoping that the next generation has a chance to get it.

I don’t know if my best friend was wise. He sure as shit seemed it. I’ll ape his best here when I can, in his honor, and hope one day I’ll get it. Maybe you will too.

Tomorrow, you need to listen to a wiser person than yourself.

Tomorrow, I need pick up the cake I ordered for a dead man.