By Sherry Pagoto

Copyright huffingtonpost

Robyn lost her husband the same day I lost my best friend. We sat across from each other at Mike’s hospital bed, moments after he passed. She caressed his forehead while I looked away, trying to ground myself as the room spun. I couldn’t bear to see my larger-than-life friend drained of colour for fear I would remember him this way.

My friendship with Mike dates back to 1989, when we were teenagers growing up outside Detroit. Our lives revolved around the restaurant where we hustled for tips to pay our way through the local college. Left behind by our peers who were off to their dream schools, we forged unlikely friendships with the collective of just-passing-throughs and lifers who made up the restaurant staff.

Mike and I were each other’s wingmen, him setting me up with the hot cook du jour, who inevitably broke my heart, and me setting him up with the hot waitress du jour, whose heart he inevitably broke.

When Mike met Robyn, the playboy in him gave way to a hopeless romantic. Mike and Robyn were friends in high school, but a misunderstanding led to a falling out, leaving them estranged. A couple of years after graduation, they ran into each other at a funeral and found they had forgotten why they hated each other so much. He was smitten.

Robyn humbled Mike. He was a charming, wise guy, addicted to the thrill of the chase. Robyn was a tough customer who could see through the act and right into his soul. I’d never seen him so in love. Our ragtag restaurant crew danced the night away at their wedding, and shortly thereafter, I moved away for graduate school. It was the end of an era.

Mike and I lost touch until he called me on a Tuesday 14 years later to tell me he’d be in Boston for business. At the time, I was a single mom spiraling from a breakup. Mike’s reappearance in my life felt like the universe sending me a rescue. He was reeling too, from the one-two punch of his father’s death from ALS, and then infertility, which robbed him and Robyn of children.

We discovered we had both found healing through running and so we spent the next 16 years chasing finish lines together around the country.

Robyn was relieved that Mike had friends to occupy his desire to run dozens of miles through trails and mud puddles, an activity that, understandably, held no appeal to her. I was thankful Robyn lent him to me and our running crew for adventures that occasionally occupied entire weekends.

Mike wasn’t just my running buddy, though. For years, on training runs we talked on the phone, sometimes for hours. We talked about his dad’s battle with ALS, my ill-fated post-divorce love life, the old days at the restaurant, and how once again we felt like outsiders to our peers who were now raising 2.5 kids in houses with white picket fences. In our 40s, we were right back to that sibling-style kinship that began at the restaurant.

After a training run in August 2023, Mike discovered a lump in his armpit. It turned out to be an aggressive lymphoma that reduced his survival rate to one we never spoke of because what does Dr. Google know anyway.

Mike was unfailingly optimistic during treatment, but with each day, I could hear the rising fear in Robyn’s voice on our regular calls. Mike’s body was deteriorating rapidly but he was clearly tapping into his marathon runner’s grit, because his mind was nowhere near giving up.

On a sunny day the following June, the doctor announced, “There’s nothing more we can do. He has about a week left.”

Robyn called me, reeling from the news. No longer grasping for hope, we cried. We took turns repeating, “I can’t believe this is happening. How did we get here?” I flew out the next morning and spent Mike’s last week by his side. On day seven, just after midnight, he slipped away.

Robyn and I were both left without the man who steadied us — she as his wife, me as his best friend. After the funeral, I flew back home and buried myself in routine for the remaining summer. Few people bring up the loss of a friend, so the entire nightmare, grief and all, could be easily hidden in plain sight.

Things were different for Robyn. Panic attacks, crushing spells of sobs, and trips to banks toting Mike’s death certificate to close accounts were her new normal. I called her occasionally to check in. Over time, our calls got more frequent, and eventually we talked every day. Our shared grief had no other willing audience.

We found ourselves rehashing the several months of hell that were Mike’s last on Earth. We dissected every conversation with the doctor, every change in treatment plan, and every new symptom, trying to understand if we missed something, if the doctors missed something, and if there was a chance for any other outcome. We cried and cursed and raged and searched for someone to blame.

I’ve never revealed myself so unabashedly to another person — not even Mike. Something about leaning into the grief blew up our inhibitions and we felt it all. Then, we’d hang up and do it all over again the next day.

Repeatedly touring the wreckage may seem masochistic, but by standing toe-to-toe with grief, we were weakening its grip on us. The only way out was through.

By fall, our conversations shifted from rehashing our grief to seeking distraction. We binge-watched TV shows across the distance — her in Detroit, me in Boston. We simultaneously hit play on each episode when I texted, “Go!” Wrapped in blankets on our respective couches, we texted commentary back and forth. Mike and Robyn had a ritual of watching their favourite shows at night, so I slipped into his place via text message.

The first show we watched was Somebody Somewhere, a quirky yet profoundly told story of a friendship that bloomed following the death of a loved one. Art was imitating life, as my friendship with Robyn was charting the same course. When we finished the series, we mourned the loss of our fictional friends who were signalling to us that salvation is found in friendship.

Next, we lightened the mood with The Golden Bachelorette, or the “old people hookup show,” as we liked to call it, ignoring the obvious fact that we were only a few years younger than the cast. Our text exchanges started with silly 1-10 ratings of the male contestants.

“He’s an 8,” she texted.

“No way, I give him a 7 tops,” I fired back.

To our surprise, grief even bullied its way onto a dating show. Cast members shared stories of spouses lost to cancer and divorce. When their tears fell, so did ours. Our text exchanges downshifted, “I feel everything he just said [crying emoji]” and “Oof, that hit home.” Grief seemed to be everywhere, but healing seemed to follow behind it.

We still occasionally rehashed Mike’s death but mostly focused on the business of the present.

Suddenly the holidays were upon us. Robyn was steeped in dread. Mike loved this season — he would torture us by playing the South Park Christmas album on a loop and always insisted on a last-minute shopping spree. This year it all seemed unbearable.

Robyn and I disappeared the holidays by treating them like any other day. We avoided gatherings, music and any greetings that began with “merry” or “happy” because we were neither. We created our own world insulated from the joy we couldn’t access.

Our hearts weren’t in sync with the calendar, so we rewrote the ending of a horrible year. In the space we crafted, we healed a little. And in that space, I found a best friend.

A few months later, spring blew in and we felt ready to embrace it. On the first warm day, we slipped on our headsets and carried our conversations outdoors. On our knees, hundreds of miles apart, we each cleared away the dead leaves and branches the winter had blown into our respective yards to make space for new blooms.

“Send me a pic when you get the pansies in your planters!” she said.

“OK! Are you up for an episode of Survivor tonight?” I replied. “Yep, text me at 9!”

Eventually summer arrived, and with it, the anniversary of Mike’s death. To our surprise, we had endured the first year without him. It turns out survival is possible when you have company.

In August, I visited Robyn. We brunched, shopped and gossiped. In the evenings, we settled into her living room to watch our shows. I sat on the couch that was Mike’s usual spot and his cat hopped onto my lap. I imagined them there, every evening for 28 years.

Now the leaves are turning for a second time since Mike died. My daily chats with Robyn are filled with updates about her art class, my (still ill-fated) love life, and trips we are planning. Mike’s name comes up often, but now it’s mostly to trade silly stories or repeat the bits of wisdom he left us.

One thing I learned from Mike was that some friendships transcend decades and miles. That there are a few special people in our lives who make everything tolerable. I also learned that some losses come with a gift, not to erase the grief, but to help you walk through it.

Sherry Pagoto is a clinical psychologist who is working on a memoir on love and loss.

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