Since I can remember, I've had a tendency to find blame for why some things happen. It'd been impossible, implausible to me that anything happened for no reason at all.
I've blamed people: I am not an Academy Award winning actress because my parents told me that I needed to study something in college that would give me a greater chance of being able to support myself. (I was paying my own way through with Student Loans. I could've studied anything I wanted and yet it was I, not my parents, who had the ultimate decision. Still, I blamed them for years.)
I've blamed inanimate objects: How the heck did that Lego block grow legs and land in the hallway at midnight for my foot to find? (Even though, I'm the one responsible for making sure the kids pick up their toys before bed. Still, blamed a piece of plastic.)
Lastly, I blamed places. Namely, Chicago.
Because....
Chicago killed my best friend.
Before Carri's death almost 3 years ago, I never Hated Chicago. Heck, I never even thought about Chicago unless Oprah was on. Other than Oprah, Chicago didn't seem like an interesting enough place to give a second thought about.
I'd always wanted to visit places like Montana, Colorado, Hawaii, California, New York.
It's no secret that when Carri did some research on alternative cancer treatments, namely Vitamin C infusions, I wasn't on board. The cancer was in her liver by then and I'd made an appointment for her at Cancer Treatment Centers of America. I wanted her to lob every medical weapon at those tumors not feed them glorified orange juice. (By the way, I can't drink orange juice anymore and refuse to wear the color orange. This blame game goes deep.)
But Carri had always been more intelligent than I and I took her word as pure Gospel. So I tried to get on board.
So many circumstances seemed to come together so quickly. Her aunt was able to travel with her to settle her in the apartment that a church member's family owned and offered to her during treatment while she waited for her husband and sons to join her a month or so later. So, I thought, maybe she was right. Maybe this was God's way of saying this was the way to go.
We talked and texted several times a day at this point. She was lonely without her husband and her boys but made the best of small, gray, cold apartment. It was November 2010 and Chicago was about to have one of the snowiest and coldest winters on record.
Carri, not a fan of cold and snow, having grown up in our native Maine, tried to make the best of it. She visited the famous Museum of Natural History, a famous radio station, and joined the "Y" to help keep her body as fit and strong as possible for the fight of her life.
I won't go into all the details of how that so-called treatment facility(and Chicago) let her down or neglected her care or how that quack of a doctor(who lived in Chicago) seemed to care more about his golf game than whether or not a 32 year old mother of 2 got her regular chemo on time.
Everyday, I'd watch the national news and weather and I'd see storm system after massive storm system. I'd see news clips of snow plows and tall drifts.
It was on one of those windy snowy days that I was sitting in my van in South Carolina where it was a balmy day in the sixties when she called me after one of her Vitamin infusions. She was walking through snow to get to the "Y" and a nice hot sauna. I was rattling off one of my endless stories as I came to a bend in the car rider line. Suddenly, she said "I'm going to be sick." She'd developed angina and started complaining about her chest hurting. Then she said her legs felt heavy. Then she hung up, threw up in the snow and slowly made her way back to the apartment and was taken to the Emergency Room. It was the last time we ever spoke verbally on the phone again.
The hospital (in Chicago) gave her fentanyl patches for the pain of the ascites that had distended her belly and legs making her look like she was ten months pregnant. The tumors were weeping fluid into her body and all of us, her family, friends were weeping countless tears for her ordeal.
What the hospital (Chicago) neglected to tell Carri was that using a heating pad on top of the fentanyl patch would cause it to dispense the medicine very quickly and she ended up overdosing and back in the hospital.
After two months of the planned 3 month stay, Carri, her husband and boys made the decision to discontinue her treatment there and go back home to her former Oncologist (who had begged her not to pursue the Vitamin C treatment in Chicago.) She got on a plane, barely able to walk, with her aunt and said goodbye to Chicago forever.
Unfortunately, her Oncologist had bad news for her and you all already know how her story ended.
So, a month later, she was gone. And I had to find blame. I blamed her doctor, I blamed the treatment for not working, I blamed the wind, snow and ice and the gray skies. I blamed Chicago.
After her death, anytime something came on about Chicago, took place in Chicago or Chicago was mentioned-I turned it off. I vowed I'd never go anywhere near that place that took my vibrant friend away from me after offering false hope and making her miserable in the process. Did you know she ran a 5K a few weeks before she left for Chicago? In the rain? She was strong when she left Eugene, even with the toll the cancer and chemo had taken on her tiny body. She was strong. And Chicago left her weak.
Fast forward almost exactly three years.
I'd learned how to cope with life without my best friend. I started making new friends. I joined a church and was Saved by the grace of our glorious Lord and forgiven all my sins. I reconnected with old friends on facebook.
One of those friends, a former high school classmate named Kim and I reconnected after she got back from her tour of duty in Afghanistan. I couldn't believe that she had been voluntarily putting her life on the line everyday for people who didn't even know her and certainly didn't appreciate her. We weren't close friends in school but we had a teasing sort of friendship. She was all Southern Rebel Pride and I was a Damn Yankee. But I think deep down there had to have been some sort of commonality because I never forgot her, even fifteen years after graduation. (Matter of fact, every time I heard Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland talk or sing I always thought of Kim and her twangy accent.)
This summer, while my parents were on a three week vacation in Maine I and my three kids stayed at their house to take care of their thirteen goats and chickens. Yup, this long time gone from the country girl was hand milking goats twice a day and learning how to pasteurize milk. I was tired but it was a lot of fun for me and the kids....with the exception of a Billy Goat named Georgie Boy.
Georgie Boy was a randy fella. And he always looked at me like I was his future girlfriend. He always tried to head butt me in the stomach as I tried to get to his food stand which he tore down within three days of my arrival. (Sexual frustration, I'm pretty sure.)
I recorded my interactions with this ornery Billy Goat on facebook as I do with most of my life but didn't think anyone was really paying attention.
A couple weeks ago, the night before my dad's back surgery I was spending the night so I could take care of the goats while they were gone and I invited Kim to stop by. This was the first time we'd seen each other since our graduation day. She hadn't changed a bit. Still beautiful, still twangy, still witty.
It was a nice visit and then...she almost made me cry.
Before leaving, she said she had something for me and pulled out a ball cap with the words "Billy Goat" on top and the word I've avoided for three years underneath: Chicago.
With the hat, came a story.
While I was busy tending to stubborn goats, Kim's company sent her to Chicago for a conference. While she was there she came across a tavern called "Billy Goat". It was located three stories below the city and it had been the hang out and meeting place of many of The Tribune reporters and writers. When she heard the history behind the place she said she thought of me right away. She said it combined what I was doing at the time with the fact that I'm a writer (she thinks I'm good!) that she snatched it right up and waited for just the right time to give it to me.
That night I shared details, private ones that I'd only ever confided to one other person before and as the words came out the burden on my shoulders grew lighter and lighter as I realized that "Chicago" had finally kept it's promise to heal. Chicago took one friend away but sent me a new one. I don't know if it'll be another fifteen years before we see each other again but I know that I can still reach out to her anytime and she'll be there.
I have two other awesome girlfriends who live close by and I feel blessed to now have more friends at this point in my life than I've ever had before. I thought Carri was the only friend I would ever need but I think from Heaven, both she and God knew better and sent me some amazing and compassionate women to go through life with.
For those of you who may wonder why I blamed Chicago and doctors and treatments instead of the cancer, I don't know why I've never blamed Cancer. Maybe because it was invisible. Or maybe it was because it was inside the body of my best friend and I couldn't hate even one iota of her.
So, thank you Carri. Thank You Kim. Thank you Lord. And thank you, Chicago, too, for teaching me a lesson in appreciation of life, love, friendship, and humor.
