Closing Time

When you get diagnosed with incurable cancer, you just assume that your friends will outlive you. You may think a lot about how long you have left (an exercise in futility, by the way) but you take it for granted that the people you love will still be there.

Over the past week, I was reminded time and time and time again that life is fragile. That whatever I think I might know about beginnings and endings is nothing but a fairytale. In addition to it being scan season yet again, which always finds me anxiously holding my breath and imagining the worst during the agonizing wait for the results, a good friend’s father passed away. A devastating loss I that cannot even begin to imagine.

And then another blow – the sudden, unexpected death of someone who was supposed to always be there; someone who had always been there. A colleague and, more importantly, a friend.

I was lucky to work with Ricky for 12 years – a long time in any job, but not nearly long enough. We quickly discovered that we had a lot in common and we would spend hours talking about everything from politics to restaurants, from the very territorial Canada geese on campus to our families – I may be Auntie extraordinaire, but he definitely held the ‘best uncle’ crown and collectively, we definitely had the best nieces and nephews in the universe.

We both had extremely poor boundaries when it came to work – Ricky was always in the office and answering emails well before the rest of the world was even thinking about getting out of bed. I worked late into the evenings. But we both did it because we cared deeply about the work that we did, about the students we were helping. Sometimes we would jokingly refer to each other as our work spouse, but really, we were more like Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets, especially when we would text each other commentary during Town Halls at work or while watching political debates on TV.

Ricky and I were each other’s sounding boards on all sorts of things. He was the best kind of listener, meeting you where you were and sharing in your joy or your sorrow or your frustration rather than trying to fix things. He would offer suggestions or solutions only if that’s what you asked for. And, inevitably, he would have an awful dad joke, or a movie reference, or a song that would fit the situation perfectly.

Ricky took intense pride in helping others shine. He was like a poppa bear to so many of his students, staff and colleagues – advising, mentoring and guiding them, finding opportunities for them to grow, making sure they had a voice and a seat at the table, stepping back and putting them in the spotlight, inviting everyone out for drinks and never letting anyone else pay. They were family and he would do anything for his family. I was family, and I knew he would do anything for me.

Ricky was among the first people I told about my diagnosis and he continued to be someone I could reach out to when I needed a listening ear. And, just like he always did, he met me in my joy or my sorrow or my frustration. He didn’t try to fix things or find the silver lining because he knew that sometimes bad things just happen. And they don’t happen for a reason. And there isn’t always a bright side.

And that’s how I’m feeling right now about losing my friend. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not fair. I hate everything about it. There is no reason and there is no bright side.

Always ready with a musical reference, after the last time we saw each other in person (shortly before Christmas), Ricky texted me some of the lyrics to a song. It was one we’d sent each other a few times before, including the day I moved to a different building and we were no longer sharing office space, and the day, just over a year ago, that campus shut down and we all started working from home. It seems fitting to end with that text:

“So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits
I hope you have found a friend
Closing time, every new beginning
Comes from some other beginning’s end”
(from Closing Time by Semisonic)