Writing a eulogy...

...for someone who is dead but still walking around.

The sad thing is that show knows it. She could physically stop it by putting a spoon of shepherd's pie on a fork, putting it in her mouth, chewing it, swallowing it and keeping it down. Yet mentally and emotionally (are these two separate things? I don't know) she can't.

She weighs 23 kilos. Twenty. Three. Kilos. For those less-metrically inclined, that would be a couple of handfuls of potato chips more than 50 pounds. To look at her, you would think it is actually less than that, but the woolly jumpers all year round make it hard to tell.

This is the least she has weighed in many, many years. For over half her life, she has been around this weight, if not a little more. She is a wonderful person, caring, funny, super-smart, has a university degree, and can analytically tell you what is happening to her body, run through the various systems that have gone haywire or have shut down, and can tell you exactly and almost dispassionately what will happen if she should catch a stomach bug. When she is travelling. In South America. Christ.

She leaves next week, and I think she was saying goodbye when we met up for coffee last week. Not, "see you when I get back", but goodbye.

While she talked about her hopes that maybe something in this trip, some spiritual thunderbolt, some small voice of epiphany, something, will turn it all around for her, I tried to be what I thought was encouraging. A person has to have hope, no matter for what or how misguided it may seem to others. But I also had to make sure that she knew that she didn't have to go, that I had hope, too. I had hope right here, with the clean running water and thick mattress underlays and phones and medical help. She doesn't have to leave to get it. I have hope right here. I wish she could see that. Maybe one day she will. Maybe, if she survives this trip, she will see it and let me give her some of my hope, some of my calm, some of the peace in my mind. Not that there's a lot, but still... Maybe she will realise that I don't see her as my friend who I wish would be different and better, but that I see her as my friend. She is my friend for what she is, and I am not waiting for what she could be or should be. I just am. For her. Now.

The funny thing is that she and I are so similar - we are both waiting for a change that will make life better. When X happens, it will all be good. For me, it's that I am carrying around too much weight and am almost done with my studies but in the meantime have no money or place of my very own, and it gets me down. But I can see it and deal with it in what could be termed a reasonable fashion. And I am not imprisoned by it. I am looking forward to it, not dying to get there.

I was so sad when I got home from seeing her for what I believe (and what I think she believes) was the last time, that I started writing her eulogy. I'm pretty sure that I will be asked to say a few words. At her funeral. Jesus. And I will not be able to write it then. It will be too much. You would think that I have had years and years to prepare for it, so her death might not hit so hard. No. It will hit hard. My friend will be dead, and I will be sad that I didn't...couldn't stop it. I will be sad that my friendship wasn't enough for her.