learning lessons

The longer you live, the more people come into your life.  Some make a lasting impression and others come and go without so much as a name or face you can remember.  Every one of these people come into our lives for reasons so mundane we fail to notice the ripple effect they had on our life paths.

Granted, most people we meet are just faces in the crowd, like extras in a movie, with no real purpose but to fill in scenes and have as much impact on our lives as background scenery, but it's the supporting actors who provide detail and steer the plot line to it's inevitable conclusion with such subtlety we never see it coming.

Ingrid was in my life since my late teens.  I don't recall specifically when we first met.  It was like she suddenly appeared and it felt as if we already knew each other and never had to go through that getting to know you crap.  We were simply friends, or so I thought..

About a month ago I decided to see what she was up to so I did a search.  What I got was a notification of her death.  It seems she died three years ago this October in a town not ten miles from where I live.  No information as to cause or surviving relatives or illness.  Just a notification that she's dead, dead, dead.

I've lost many friends and relatives in my life due to death.  I'd shed some tears, grieve, feel sad, accept it as a part of life, and move on.  But the news of Ingrid's death put me in a state of low level grieving for a month and I can't seem to shake this feeling of sadness.  The occasional passing thought of Ingrid has been replaced with a non-stop flood of memories and I can't seem to get her out of my mind.  It's not like we were close friends.  We ran with the same crowds when we were teenagers and didn't see much of each other after that, except for a few chance meetings.  I can't shake the feeling there's a lesson to be learned before I move on.

We all ran in crowds back then, going from one party to another and making things up as we went along.  Ingrid shared an apartment with another girl and we'd sometimes end up there after a night of raising hell.  More often than not, they'd invite me to stay after everyone else left and the three of us would hang out and party and have a lot of laughs.  Sometimes we'd grab the girls and go off for an adventure with no destination but to sniff out some parties to crash.  Many times we'd find ourselves in a strange house, partying with people we didn't know, and Ingrid was always by my side.  If there was only one chair, she would insist I take it, preferring to sit on the floor next to me using my leg as an armrest, raising feminist eyebrows and unmentioned masculine approval at the sight of such subservient behavior.  But her subservient posture was her way of thumbing her nose at conventionality.  She was the most level headed person I knew and she knew I knew that, just as she knew me better than I knew myself, and I knew that, too.  Without discussing it, we knew all about each other.  I saw who she really was and she saw that in me and that was the foundation of our friendship. 

We had a few chance meetings through the years.  The last time we met she was sitting on a bench in an amusement park.  I casually sat down next to her and said hi.  She beamed as she saw my face after all those years and we immediately picked up where we left off, basking in each others auras as we chit chatted and drank in each others faces.

The news of her death brought me more than sadness.  The realization of the absolute finality of it all ripped a hole in my soul and a feeling of irretrievable loss.  I can't help thinking Ingrid was a relationship that never blossomed.  Even more so, a soul-mate not recognized until it was too late.

I wonder if she knew that on her death bed.  I wonder if she knows now.  I wonder if I'm just deluding myself.

All I know is my family, friends, and everyone I know can drop dead tomorrow and I'll get over it.  Why am I still grieving a month over a relatively insignificant death?

I wonder what the lesson is.