One of my deepest fears

Today was hell.
I got to work and was catching up on email when I saw Micki's email asking me if I heard that there was a plane crash in nepal. I did not panic at first, even though I knew that Janice was on a trek at Everest and that she flew into the most precarious airport in the world. I assumed she was already there. She left on Monday. But, there was a minor doubt. So the first thing I did was to look for the name of the orphanage that they volunteered and sent an email to beverly to see if she could help me make sense of the news. I then looked at Janice's Blog and zoomed in on the plane and wrote down the name of the airline and the plane number. This plane is tiny, so the planes have numbers that are in view, they are prop planes. Just 20 people inside. I went to the Nepali times online and saw the story and expected to see some weird airline name and an odd plane number. To my horror. it was her airline and the same plane number that was showing on her blog. I immediately went to another place.
In my mind, i was somewhere,I was not in my body. I was out there, somewhere realizing that this could mean that Janice had died. I was devastated. I was at work and I suddenly began wailing and sobbing and screaming. I was in total shock, I just was in shock. There was no way to stop the crying, it had taken me over and was running my life, I could not be "appropriate" could not quiet my sadness for the sake of others, I was just experiencing raw emotion. My friend Trisha offered to call Steph, to have her come pick me up. When she answered the phone, Trisha said, Steph, can you come get Suzanne, Steph shouted, WHATS WRONG! WHATS WRONG! and then I took the phone, I told her that I believed that Janice was in a plane crash and that nobody survived. She began yelling and crying NO! NO! NO! OH MY GOD!, IS SHE DEAD? IS SHE DEAD, I just kept crying and saying I think so, I think so, I am not sure, I don't know. To told her to call my mom and I would be right home. Trisha drove me home and i have no idea how we even got home, I have no recollection of driving home. When we got home, the house was eerie, the baby had no idea why I was home and he was thrilled, mom was tearful and worried, Steph was stoic. We went upstairs to continue to do research, to see if we could figure anything out. If we could determine that she was not on the plane. I was sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, thinking she was really gone. Then Micki called and said that she saw the flight manifest on the airline web page and Janice and Christy were not on the manifest. At first I didn't believe it, i just wanted to hear her voice or touch her or hug her or hold her hand or something, something. Eventually I did realize that she was alive and she was not on the manifest and I needed to comeback to reality and start healing. I just basically for a few hours and kept re-reading the manifest. She was not on the manifest, she was not on the plane she is alive. At that point i shifted to the people who actually did perish in that plane crash. I could be their family, it could have been me grieving for the rest of the day. And the rest of my adult life. Instead, by some miracle I am allowed to continue on living the same life I had yesterday. I get to decide what things to get angry about, whether or not I want to eat sweets or eat something healthy, I get to see my son smile again. I am incredibly blessed!

The ironic part is that Janice is probably trekking in the mountains,having a blast, not even aware of what hell we went through today. No knowledge of our fears, our gripping at the hope that she was alive and the deep loss we were trying to get our head around.

For many reasons, this is day was just impossible. Losing someone i love without being able to talk to them or tell them I love them before they go is my biggest childhood core trigger. It rules my life. This was devastating, to think that I had lost Janice and had never had a chance in the past few weeks to tell her I loved her or how much I value her in my life.

Today I realized that the depth of love I have for my friends is amazing, it is pure, it is more than just friendship.
There is no word for it, it is far more than just friendship, it is far more than family it is not of this place.
It is from another plane of existence. The friends i have in my life, continually remind me how good, goodness can be. They teach me things, they learn from me, we all love together. We all celebrate together and at times, we all grieve together.

I will be forever grateful for the love ad kindness my friends have blanketed me with in my life. I will be forever in awe of the gifts they have brought to me.

Janice has brought me one of these gifts, without her knowledge, she has made an impact on my emotional healing, at the deepest level. Through this Brush with the Oh my god moment!, I have gained a deeper understanding of how I am built. My emotional pain that has been with me my entire life, had a moment of healing, a brief release of some of that pain.

Tonight I will be able to sleep a bit deeper, a bit longer and a bit more adult. My childhood pain has found a soothing balm for the moment. I will never forget this day.