The Daily Chai is....Here.

Today's Chai was your typical latte. Tasty.

I am emotionally drained, I can't think straight and my body is a little shaky. It's been a long couple of days and I'm still trying to figure out where my head is at. I am angry and heartbroken and confused. Life has a way of kicking you in the teeth when you least expect it and I'm trying to figure out how I deal with the turmoil in my head. At the same time, I look around  and I can't believe how lucky I am to be here, no matter how painful it sometimes is to live this life.

When I woke up on my last day in Vancouver, Anna was snuggled in beside me on the couch. Zoe woke up and I took her to work and we had one last chat on the bench outside the restaurant. We talked about the summer and how she might come visit after she sees her Oma in Edmonton because she's gotten so used to seeing us regularly that she doesn't think she can go a whole year before she comes again. I hugged her goodbye and walked slowly up the hill to my car. I never look back when I say goodbye, I just can't. I don't know when I will see her again and my heart hurts over it. I have faith, however, that it will happen again soon.

I got home to a full house with aunts and uncles and grandma and children (we had a daycare started by this point with seven kids) and of course, Geoff and Margriet. Margriet was getting tired and wanted to nap so I asked if I could say goodbye before she went to sleep. I hugged her thin shoulders gently and whispered to her to keep fighting. I told her I loved her and she told me she loved me too and I started to cry. I couldn't help it. I tried to be strong all week when I was with the family, but goodbyes are so hard and this one was the hardest of all. To cover up, I started to laugh and said, "I cried when I said goodbye to Zoe too, goodbyes suck shit," I didn't want her to think I was crying because I knew I would never see her again, although we both know this to be true.

Margriet is dying. My beautiful, young, brave friend is dying and I want to howl at the heavens about the unfairness of how each of our lives play out. Why rapists and murderers live full lives and mothers die painful deaths. Why this person, who gave birth to my girl Zoe and raised her to be a beautiful, wonderful person and takes no credit for it ("Zoe's just awesome Megan, she came out like that.") is having her life cut short. I went the night Zoe was born with Subway sandwiches to the hospital because Margriet was so hungry and hospital food sucks. I clearly remember her sitting up in bed, cross-legged, telling me how amazing the human body is because she was already forgetting the pain and was just so happy to have her baby girl. I can see her 22 year old self, young and strong and tired and happy in my mind's eye and it crushes me. This is a person who I've lain on the beach with, watching the waves and dipping the baby in water and laughing together at her reaction. A woman I drank with and danced with until the wee hours of the morning when we were even younger than we are now. Someone I shopped with, someone I ate dinner with, someone I got caught in the rain with, someone I did unimportant, everyday things with that don't even matter now. I have odd images of her in my head, her bowed head as she nursed Zoe unabashedly on the steps of City Hall, her hand with its long fingers as she felt the fabric of an expensive dress, her awesome green pants. Someone I didn't see for 15 years because money was always tight or the timing wasn't right, but regardless of that, she became my sister. This is a person I love and she is dying. Why is my niece losing her mother? I just want to scream and scream until my throat is raw. I want to lash out and hit things and hurt people. I want to crawl into someone's lap and cry like a child. I want so many things that will never be. I want to lie in bed and never get up, to live under the covers in that comfort and oblivion.

But I can't. I have to keep going. I hide behind a smile and I pretend I am strong for my girls and myself. I have to go to work every day and be professional even though I am simply waiting to hear the news that my friend is gone. It's a reality that I know I will face when the time comes, but right now, I don't know how it's possible that it can be true.