Jason Driskill

My friend Jen Dyson passed away about a year and a half ago.

I met Jen on a mission trip to Mexico between my Sophomore and Junior years of high school.   Our bond was one of distance, but withstood college years and even through our tumultuous twenties.  I kept in touch with her regularly because she was like a sister.  Any time I spoke with her on the phone, IM chatting, or even face-to-face visits, it felt as if no time had passed between our previous time together.

I got the news of her passing through a voice mail between sessions during my graduate school’s  winter review.  I do not gracefully handle the notion of loss.   To realize that a loved one is actually gone can take me awhile, sometimes years.   Especially a cherished-but-distant friend like Jen.

Selfishly I never contacted her family to offer my condolences.  “Selfishly” because not talking to them would prevent a complete realization of her absence.  Do I feel like an asshole?   Yes.  But Jen understood this kind of selfishness - we were close enough to have discussed it, and memories of her do not haunt me for wanting to pretend that she still lives outside of New York commuting every day over an hour on the train to her job into the City at the lighting company where she just barely uses her Masters in Lighting Design for Theatre to make a living, occasionally telling me how delightfully comfortable she is in her relationship with her boyfriend, Grant.

Whether we realize it or not, the people with whom we surrounded ourselves help us grasp a better understanding of “self.”  They are - we all are - mirrors for us to see ourselves and define what we are, or are not.   Jen was one of my most trusted mirrors.  I perceived her to understand me even when I didn’t understand myself.  How do I locate myself now?  Jen was an extension of my own cynicism.  Now I’m left lacking.   I don’t know how to make sense of this lack and I continue to grieve even after a year.