Rough day.

Just got word a few hours ago that my mentor died in her sleep.

She's been frail and fighting death since a month after I met her, my first day of grad school 10 years ago this August. Back then, we didn't really expect her to last this long. But the fact that she did keep hanging on made it easy to conclude that she would continue fighting onward indefinitely.

I told myself many times, and occasionally others that we had to prepare for the prospect of losing her, but now I see how stupid that was. Prepare? There is no preparation. The news hit me like a fist to the face, took me a few minutes to recover to the point of even speaking, and from there I've been yo-yoing all morning. I offered to make some calls with the news, which sounded easy at the time, when I wanted to be helpful. Made one, and he ended up cheering me up, but now I can't face the thought of another one.

And I keep thinking about her, my mentor, and what a hole I'm going to have without her and I can't quite come to grips with it.

I could always call her when I was down, and just her voice cheered me up. She didn't always know what to say about my problem, but she always made me laugh at it, which would turn my mood around, and also force me to stop taking it so seriously. And she helped me feel better about myself, because I made her laugh, too. Unintenionally, usually, but it didn't matter. She would feel awful about her health, I would feel awful about some stupid relationship or some nonsense, and pretty soon we were both giggling uncontrollably over something stupid I said and then everything was OK. I knew I always had her to turn to.

Now I don't know who I'm going to call.

Huh. I didn't realize this until I wrote that last line, but I think I'm going to still turn to her for awhile. When I don't know who else to call, I have a feeling I'm going to call up the image of her, tell her my sob story out loud in my head and listen to her laugh and watch the smile seep back into my face.

At least I hope it happens like that.

I may be entering a new phase in my life. I do that all the time with living people, but I always have the option to call them afterwards and watch it play out the other way. I don't think I've ever done it with a dead person. I've never had one. Believe it or not, I've never had a really close person to me die. I'm 43. I guess I'm incredibly lucky.

I sort of had this guy in high school. It was weird, though. I had only met him about a month before, but we had this immediate bond, felt really close really fast, and then he killed himself. I felt really weird about that one. It was also unsettling some of the reactions I got--What are you so upset about? You knew him a month?

Hmmmm. Or did people even react that way, or was I just afraid they would? I recall being very afraid they would.

And my uncle did last Christmas, and I had always felt kinda close to him in a way, but had only spoken to him a half dozen times in ten years. Wasn't like a big gaping hole in my life.

God.

I don't even want to try to explain how she was so extraordinary here, because I couldn't even begin to convey it. But I'll share the one most extraordinary thing she ever did for me. She told me she loved me.

Nobody had ever done that for me before, outside my family and a few lovers. Female lovers. She started a whole long chain of reactions with that one. The only gift more valuable than hearing that from someone I looked up to so dearly was the ability to say it back.

Once I said I love you to her, I figured out I could say it to a few other people in my life who desperately needed it. Found the courage to do it? Inadvertantly shamed me into it, really. Even I had to be appalled at the picture of saying it to Lucia without ever saying it to my own mother. They were about the same age--it was hard not to make the connection.

I said it to my mom a couple months later and she gasped. I just threw it in there abruptly out of the blue as we were saying goodbye on a phone conversation--I had already said goodbye, actually, she returned it and she was probably already pulling the receiver away from her face when she heard it.

Then I told a man. That one was really hard. I had been sleeping with them for awhile, but could never admit romantic feelings toward them. That's what proved I was still straight.

God. She helped me with so many things. Leading by example, mostly.

Huh. I just realized something. You know all that crap you always hear about romantic relationships, that you have to love yourself first. That nobody else can make you happy, blah blah blah. I say crap even though I bought into it up until two minutes ago, though I had the troubling cognitive dissonance of seeing so many different couples disprove it.

I do believe you have to love yourself to be happy, I just believe they got the order wrong. Maybe some people can love themselves first, before anybody else did. I'm happy for them, but I'm pretty sure I'm not one of them. I could just never trust my own judgement all the way, somebody outside had to validate it for me.

Can anyone really love themselves right from the start, without ever receiving it in from the outside first? I've seen lovers do it for people, I've seen a close friend convince people they were good enough, I even know people who seemed to get it from their own mom.

My mom. Damn. She was so freaking hard on us, it took me forever to believe she loved me. Way longer to convince me I cared. She was just my mom. Just. Of course she loved me, she was required.

Lucia made me appreciate her love, too. That's complicated, and beside the point.

Maybe it was just because she needed nothing from me. A mother desperately needs their children to love them back and approve of them--at least mine does--and a lover is certainly getting something out of it. We all know their "I love yous" are often masquerading for "I love feeling in love with you," or the really scary one, "I sure do desperately want one person to love me, hold me above all others, and you're looking more and more like a prime candidate, and I'm feeling something for you, so hopefully saying this will help cinch the deal and insure that someone will love me." Not that we actually think that all out before telling a lover we love them, but it's not as if we're not getting a whole lot in return. And that all that won't influence the decision to say it.

When a really good friend says it, though--sure, they've got the friendship, but Lucia had innumerable friendships. It's not like she needed me or anything she would get out of it. And she was so utterly sincere. Like a child. Same thing she liked about me. That was half the basis for our friendship, I think. We could both be little kids with each other and never judged harshly for it. She just said it because she felt it.

And no one has ever done anything like that for me. Before or since.

I love you, Lucia. I never really bought into that crap--that's how I thought of it--of dead people looking down on you, watching you score the winning touchdown and all that, but I picture her up there right now with this great big smile on her face. Smiling at me. I don't know if she's really up there doing it, or if it's just the memory of her that I'm carrying around with me and manipulating. Who cares? Either way, it's still Lucia.

I guess I'll always have her that way. Now I'm afraid she's going to fade. Oh God, I know I can't ask you to bring her back, please just don't let her fade away.