of her bed.
I stared hard at Suzanne, at her perfect heart-shaped face and reddish-brown
skin, feeling comforted somehow by the youthful smoothness of her cheeks and
the girlish curve in her lips. She seemed oddly undiminished by the illness. Her
dark hair was still lustrous and long; someone had put it in two ropy braids that
reached almost to her waist. Her track runner’s legs lay hidden beneath the
blankets. She looked young, like a sweet, beautiful twenty-six-year-old who was
maybe in the middle of a nap.
I regretted not coming earlier. I regretted the many times, over the course of
our seesawing friendship, that I’d insisted she was making a wrong move, when
possibly she’d been doing it right. I was suddenly glad for all the times she’d
ignored my advice. I was glad that she hadn’t overworked herself to get some
fancy business school degree. That she’d gone off for a lost weekend with a semi-
famous pop star, just for fun. I was happy that she’d made it to the Taj Mahal to
watch the sunrise with her mom. Suzanne had lived in ways that I had not.
That day, I held her limp hand and watched as her breathing grew ragged, as
eventually there were long pauses between her inhales. At some point, the nurse
gave us a knowing nod. It was happening. Suzanne was leaving. My mind went
dark. I had no deep thoughts. I had no revelations about life or loss. If anything, I
was mad.
To say that it was unfair that Suzanne got sick and died at twenty-six seems
too simple a thing. But it was a fact, as cold and ugly as they come. What I was
thinking as I finally left her body in that hospital room was this: She’s gone and I’m
still here. Outside in the hallway, there were people wandering in hospital gowns
who were far older and sicker looking than Suzanne, and they were still here. I
would take a packed flight back to Chicago, drive along a busy highway, ride an
elevator up to my office. I’d see all these people looking happy in their cars,
walking the sidewalk in their summer clothes, sitting idly in cafés, and working at
their desks, all of them oblivious to what happened to Suzanne—apparently
unaware that they, too, could die at any moment. It felt perverse, how the world
just carried on. How everyone was still here, except for my Suzanne.