Adieu, Gypsy

Charley Freiberg photo

This is a eulogy for an old friendship.

The Gypsy grew up norther from here, and as a young adult somehow became blessed – or cursed, depending on how you feel about it – with gypsy dust in her sneakers. As a young adult she left home and family behind and ever after moved often and traveled far, searching out great adventures and questing avidly for answers to the Great Unknowns. This led her to learn to fly airplanes and to jump out of them, trek in Nepal, climb mountains, explore deserts, go on Spirit Quests, and eventually to study psychology. She lived north to south on the east coast, then in several states and places on the other coast. 

We were friends for a long time. Back in the dark ages, she and her boyfriend shared a house with the Husband and me, another couple, and the British Car Gal. The Gypsy and the Husband worked at the same publishing house in southern NH, but because our year in the shared house coincided with her weekly jumping-out-of-airplanes adventures, I didn’t get to know her well until several years later, when we unknowingly both moved to different parts of Maine – she with a new husband, me with the same old Husband. We ran into each other unexpectedly on one of the Husband’s photo shoots, renewed our friendship, and it grew stronger and deeper through long, frequent letters and occasional phone calls, even as we moved back to New Hampshire, and she moved to Florida, divorced, and eventually moved back to NH to work at the same publishing house I was then working at. At times she lived with us; at other times she lived near us; and for many years she moved about in Colorado, California, Washington state, Utah, and other points west. During those years I spent a lot of time in her various places visiting. Friends of hers became friends of ours, friends of ours became friends of hers. The network of relationships grew larger.

When the world started to become the much scarier place that it is now, the Gypsy decided to empty the gypsy dust out of her sneakers and move back to northern New England, believing it would be better to live close to friends and family if the world was self-destructing, than to be far away on another great adventure, but unable to return home if the worst happened. She was in the midst of writing a doctoral thesis, so it was a good time to move, and she settled nearby. The web of relationships grew closer, and glowed brightly.

I introduced the Gypsy to an even older friend, and they began courting. My old friend and I were giggly-happy that he and the Gypsy were hitting it off - what could be better than a bunch of old friends living near each other so they could see each other often and support each other as we grew older? The future seemed bright and charming. 

Life can’t be counted on to remain simple or charming. If the gods of Perversity can find a place to throw a wrench in the works, they will. And they did: my old friend’s life became suddenly, unexpectedly, irrevocably complicated in several different ways, deeply disrupting his path in life, where and what he was going to be doing in future, and straining his relationship with the Gypsy, which was too new to have roots strong enough to rest on during such an upheaval.  Something dark crept into the Gypsy’s mind and heart. As the new relationship grew tarnished and brittle and shattered under the stress, and the oldest friendship stayed true, my long friendship with the Gypsy cracked and broke in two. What she eventually said to me, when she told me she never wanted to see me ever again, made sense only to her, but it was clear she was angry, angry, angry and felt she’d been betrayed; and no, we couldn’t, and she wouldn’t, talk about it. 

When a long friendship breaks, one hopes it’s just a strain and with time passions will cool, explanations will be given, understanding and compassion will light the way, tears will be shed, love will conquer. Sometimes it happens. This time it didn’t.

Seven years later, the Tall Dude received a slightly cryptic call from one of the Gypsy’s relatives. The Gypsy was seriously ill, not expected to live more than a few days, and didn’t want to see or hear from any of us. That she was seriously ill took us by surprise – she wasn’t yet old, and last we’d seen her, as far as we knew she was healthy, and believed she thought so, too. Thirty years ago she had been treated for a small melanoma. Knowing what we know now about that skin cancer, we have to wonder whether it insidiously burned its way deeply around her body, wreaking unseen havoc and gathering strength as it morphed to eventually emerge as the metastasizing cancers that felled her. We’ll never know for sure. 

The Gypsy’s life during those years since she decided I’d betrayed her became suddenly, unexpectedly, and irrevocably complicated. During those years, when I didn’t know what she was contending with, I thought of her often, wondering whether what had broken could ever be fixed. Now that I know how ill she was and can imagine how scared and sad and lonely she must have been as she fought for her life, all I can feel is a deep, deep sadness. She wasn’t alone - she had family not far away; and yet – she’d moved back here to be near family and friends in case the worst thing happened in our world. And when the worst happened in hers, we weren’t there. 

I firmly believe that people get to choose with whom, and how, they die, so there were no attempts made for a death-bed reconciliation.  Last night, I girded my loins, took a deep breath, and finally searched the internet to see if I could find out whether the Gypsy had, in fact, died. 

We humans can too easily create tragedy where love should have abided. I wish things had gone otherwise; I wish the Gypsy had been willing to accept the safe haven and comfort that we were able to provide my old friend during his life-shattering problem. I wish we could have loved and cared for her during her most bitter days. 

I wish…and I’m sad, sad, sad.

Originally published 28 January 2018 in the Concord Monitor as "Eulogy for an ended friendship."