There’s a famous quote that reads; Life happens while you’re busy making plans. No one can ever prepare you for the dreaded news you have cancer or any other type of situation with life-threatening consequences. It’s mind-numbingly shocking, one is in disbelief, and everyone thinks how did this happen to me? Well, it happened to my best friend Matt, a healthy guy in his 30’s who got sucker punched by life the hard way.
How To Deal With Your Best Friend Dying…
After a bout of Illness for a month, he was diagnosed with stage four cancer, where three different types had spread throughout his body and brain. Matt had to undergo four surgeries and was given up to two weeks to live. But just six weeks before, he was healthy and fine. Life happens while you’re busy making plans. I never knew anyone who had cancer, let alone a best friend, and now I found myself wanting to help, but what could I do? What solace could I provide? What words does one say? Upon hearing the news, I felt I had cancer too. When a true friend loves, you love. When a true friend is in pain, you’re in pain. When a true friend is dying, a part of you dies too.
Instead of words that could never fix the situation, I decided I’d be a doer. I went with him to his chemotherapy treatments to support him, make him know he was not alone, and to help the process be that much easier. His chemo treatments were for one day a week, eight hours long. That’s a walk in the park for someone you love. I would go, make him laugh, keep him company, and we would talk about the future. Yes, the future. See he was a fighter, and he sucker punched life right back! He lived another two years until he left us. Matt passed in the summer of June 2015. He was a best friend, a kind soul and just an awesome guy whose friendship will live in me forever.
I’ve never lost a friend this way, and nothing will ever prepare you for it. In fact, I lost three friends last year all in different ways. By being there to support Matt, I felt involved and living up to being a best friend. I asked the right questions to doctors when he couldn’t, and I took the place of his family because they weren’t there. I’m still sad when I think about the loss of my friend, but at least I know I cared and I stepped up when the going got hard. To believe in good, you have to do good. This is how I dealt with my best friend dying, by serving him to do right.
Have you had friends that have passed away? How did you deal with it?
In Memory of the beloved Matt White.
*This post is sponsored by United Healthcare. All opinions expressed are my own.
