falcongrrl

Steve’s recommendation aside, there wasn’t a lot that made sense about Bard and me on paper – Bard was a math genius and I’d struggled to get through the modicum of math required for an English degree from a state university. Bard was very active in RPGs and I only very occasionally played, always feeling self-conscious about my lack of strategy. We both wrote, but differently: my poetic storytelling was a far cry from Bard’s convoluted yet tightly contrived plots in their novels.

A mean part of me whispers, how close could you really have been, then? What right do you have to mourn a giant of a person? Who do you think you are, anyway?

I don’t have much of an answer for that part of myself. I usually don’t. But I’m going to try.

Once, after my stepdad’s hemorrhagic stroke, obsessed with death, I asked Bard if they would lead my funeral service. Their response was an unequivocal no. They would not be in good enough shape to lead a funeral service for me, they said. I think of that often now.

Sometimes I wonder about what it would have been like if I had been the one to get cancer and die. I’m no more able to lead a service than Bard would have been. But I wonder if they would have been a better friend to me that last year, those past few months.

It wasn’t the hemiparalysis that bothered me, though I was a bit of an unintentional daredevil wheelchair driver when I visited last May. It wasn’t the change in intelligence or capability.

It was the suffering.

I can and do beat myself up about this: it became too hard watching my friend suffer and being able to do nothing to make it better.

I’m not ready yet to really talk about glioblastoma.

I asked my 20yo what makes a friendship work, because we were in the car together and also because I value their opinion as a person. And as any Gen-Z would, they responded in their own generational language: it’s when you’re vibing.

Even though the language isn’t mine, I knew what they meant even before they went on, “It’s when you can talk about your thing and they can talk about their thing and you don’t need to know the subject to appreciate it. It’s like me and Lav.”

Continuing with the Gen-Z talk, Bard would often spill the tea to me, about themselves and about others. I knew whom they liked and whom they didn’t, and mostly why. I heard who of our mutual acquaintances was crushing on whom. There was something adolescent about it, whispering (typing) secrets at a sleepover and giggling or commiserating.

There was also something profoundly innocent about my feelings toward Bard. People are complex. Connections between people can be complicated. Communication can be fraught, even (especially?) among those closest to us. But I loved Bard simply and wholeheartedly. There just wasn’t ever much conflict between us. “No blame,” they would always say. Or once, when I checked in, “Why on wood would I be mad at you about that?”

Once I bought them a birthday card with a photo of two little girls, holding hands with faces bent toward each other. And despite Bard’s staggering intellect, despite the edgy but hilarious snark, the zaniness – the Bard I knew was one to look at you and say, “How are you?” and really want to know.

I don’t know why Bard and I vibed. I probably never will. But we did. And I’m the better for it.