Věra and I went to Amsterdam together, in September 2006, for 2 nights and 3 days. I had never had a group of girlfriends before Prague and I’d always wanted to take an all-girl trip. A group of girls, renting a car and driving to Italy or some such. But no one ever came through – that includes myself. I was always too stuck in my own head and too wrapped in the bullshit drama in my life to be able to tear myself away.
Well, no one came through except Věra. I knew Věra as someone who made & kept plans. She was never one to miss a birthday or a special event. On the rare occasion that she had to miss something – even if you’d mentioned if off hand and forgotten about it, yourself, she would always call you to apologize for not being able to be there. I never knew anyone like that. I wasn’t like that, myself. Most people just wouldn’t show up or would send an off-hand text making up excuses. Věra was always doing something or going somewhere, and she would always gladly take you along with her.
Anyway. The trip. I think I may have suggested it quickly, going to Amsterdam, and she grabbed the idea and ran with it. Flights were cheap and only one and a half hours. She bought us tickets. In theory, I wanted to go, in practice, I was anxious and afraid to just go have fun and step away from drama in my life.
I tried to be excited, and I had my moments. On the second day there, however, I inadvertently made her cry. She called me a bitch, too, I think. Honestly, I thought most people just didn’t notice me or the things I said, most of the time. I lived in my own little bubble. That was the first moment where I realized that I could & did have an effect on those around me. It was a painful realization and one that led me to apologizing to her profusely and having a short, but good conversation with her. She told me something about how sometimes, she could feel me on the same level with her – relaxed and open an having fun – but then I would just suddenly, “UH.” She made a motion and a grunting noise here that I can’t quite describe. It was the motion of someone suddenly & aggressively folding up and shutting down on themselves. I described that to my therapist, not long ago, saying I was surprised at how observant & on target she was. She had mimicked exactly how I felt. I was always hyper aware of the contrast, when I was carefree and able to get out of my own head and when I’d suddenly seize up.
In short, I spent a long time regretting that I wasn’t able to just relax and step away from myself and enjoy every moment of that trip. It wasn’t who I wanted to be. I was resentful that I clung, every moment, to all the shit that was going on my life. There were many qualities about her that I admired & aspired to, and told her so. She was warm & welcoming to everyone in her life, she always struck me as being so positive and open to anything. She didn’t get bogged down with feeling sorry for herself about things that weren’t going the way she wanted them to. And I find myself thinking back, every day, trying to remember if I heard her say anything bad about anyone, even once. The rest of us would sit around gossiping and complaining, and she wouldn’t ever join in. She might just sit there and ask questions, sounding curious or confused about why we were saying the things we were saying. Occasionally, I found it infuriating – even when you wanted her to be on your side & say something negative or agree with you, she wouldn’t. Of course, at the time I didn’t realize that just because she wouldn’t be negative didn’t mean she wasn’t “on my side.” It just meant she didn’t see that as being constructive or helpful.
Even after Amsterdam, when I made her cry and felt like I wasn’t always so nice to her, her friendship never wavered. She always seemed to only see the good in you, or at least, fully accepted the not so good & didn’t focus on it, as so many of us do.
When I left Prague, for good, she sat next to me at the Noodle Bar and started crying, saying she didn’t want me to go. She was the only person who’d ever done that.
And there are people who you say, “Whenever Jane is around, it’s always the Jane show.” Not Věra. Not like she didn’t talk about herself sometimes, but she spent a lot of time asking questions, also. She was always very curious about what everyone else was doing or why you thought or felt the way you did. That’s how she was with me, anyway.
That’s not to say she was a saint. Of course not. And there were many things about her lifestyle or things she did that many of us, including me, were quick to judge. But I’m certainly no saint and I still question & judge half the things I’ve done over the past decade and a half. And she was certainly unique and did things her own way.
The only thing that ever seemed to really plague her and bring her down was relationships and the baby thing. I was surprised (well… pleasantly so) when she wrote & said that she & Bruce had broken up. I never asked for details. Afterwards, though, several of her emails afterwards would be about her new boyfriend. It seemed like there were many, but in hindsight, I think it was only a couple. 3. Each email about each new boyfriend rattled on hopefully about having a baby with him. I rolled my eyes once. Then she also lost her job and she was feeling down, but refused to wallow in it, saying she was trying to keep her spirits up. She also lost her friend, Amy, to cancer this past summer. Amy lived in Philadelphia and I met her once. Věra had gone to Philly to spend time with her while she was going through cancer treatments – I thought it had sounded like she would recover. On August 8, Věra wrote that Amy died. Amy was mine & Vera’s age and I thought about how fucked up it is for someone so young to die.
Then I got the email about Tomaš and in THIS email, she said that HE wanted a family, as well. That was a first. I talked to her on the phone a few times and she told me more about him. It sounded like a quick, whirlwind relationship. When she went to New York for work, she said they were having a hard time being apart. It was cute.
And then she wrote me that she was pregnant. I was genuinely thrilled for her. I wrote an email the equivalent of jumping up and down and squealing “OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!” We wrote back and forth about the pregnancy, babies, motherhood. I kept begging her for pictures, but their digital camera had broken and they were saving to get a new one. She was feeling well, for the most part – just the usual pregnancy complains. Tired, I think I remember her getting sick once, feeling big. But she was healthy & very happy. She’d traveled a few times and was talking about going to Switzerland with Tomas, when he went for work.
She wrote to ask me if she could order some things from the States and have them sent to me, for me to send over. Of course, I said. There were several cartons of that Yogi tea she loved, baby clothes from GAP and Old Navy, some books, and a huge bolt of bright green fabric for upholstering a chair that would be her “breastfeeding chair.” I sent that, and added a sweater I’d picked up from Ricicli, for her daughter. I’d told her about Ricicli, clothes that were right up her alley – hand made from recycled clothing, pink, with colorful buttons that were also made from recycled clothes. I thought it might inspire her, since she was always so creative.
The last email I got from her was on December 8, letting me know that the package had arrived.
Nikki,
thanks so much for the cute sweater.
YES….finally the box made it to Prague.
More soon, Vera
I left it sitting in my inbox, to respond to later. “Later” was usually a couple weeks.
Yesterday, on the 17th, I got an email from my ex telling me he had some very bad news. It was the first thing I read when I woke up, and his email was the very first email at the top of my inbox. I thought “What the fuck is he contacting me for?” And I saw her name in the subject line and I had a feeling that I quickly pushed away. I clicked on the email trying to find out what on earth he had to say to me about Vera.
And you know the rest.
Maybe it’s the time of year and the fact that I was already feeling raw from acknowledging other things that had happened around Christmas, long ago, but the knowledge of her death has hit me far harder than I would have expected. Well. Not that I had any expectations, this isn’t the sort of thing you find yourself pondering one afternoon. “Hmm… How would I feel if Věra died?”
Maybe I’m doing her a disservice to suggest I’m more affected because of other factors. Perhaps she’s just touched me more than I realized. There are people that you meet in your life, some become friends… but not many who make you think about the ways you’d like to be a better person.
She knows so many people & has so many friends – it’s comforting to know that her daughter will have so many people around to tell her stories about her mother, and for her to see how much her mom meant to so many people. I have faith that many of her friends will make it a point to keep in touch with her daughter. I can’t keep dwelling on the fact that Věra never had a chance to meet her. That’s the one thought, alone, that makes me lose it, over and over again.
I think the best way that I can honor her memory is to keep her in mind & remember her in all the moments when I’m struggling to improve myself. These are the moments to remember the qualities I admired in her and to continue working towards being the person I want to be.
She was a wonderful friend to so many people. I wish I’d always been as good to her as she was to me. I thought that often, while she was alive, as well. Death is full of cliches. When someone dies, we cry over all the things we wanted to do, wished we done, wished we could do once more… but if that person were still alive, of course, we’d never do it.
There’s just no words to describe how awful this is. While she’s not a part of my every day life, it will be hard to remember, every time I think of her or am about to check in and write her an email, that she’s no longer there. The landscape has shifted, her absence is palpable.
She will be missed, in a big way. I wish, more than anything, that her daughter would have known her and that she’d have gotten a chance to hold this little girl that she waited so long for.