We had a game where we would set up prompts and build stories together, sometimes wild, crazy stories. ‘It could so easily have been me….’ was one opener and
complicated, fantasy travel plans was another favourite. It made us laugh, and the dafter, the better. In fact we enjoyed doing most things together and even doing nothing together was better than doing nothing separately.
The ‘easily have been me’ one was a rich vat of story opportunities. We often returned to it.
‘There but for fortune. If my great grandfather hadn’t been off work because a pig stood on his toe and crushed it, he wouldn’t have met my grandmother who was delivering groceries and they wouldn’t have had my dad who met my mum when he helped to fish her out of the baths because she jumped into the deep end by mistake. And if my mum hadn’t missed the train that was derailed and where everyone died, my story might never have lived to be told.’
‘That’s serendipity.’
‘Well the whole life-thing’s a game of chance isn’t it?’
‘I’m not so sure, what about fate? And things being written in the stars?’
‘Stick with serendipity, it’s a butterfly word. Fate sounds heavy and morose.’
‘Yes, fate sounds like a dismal outcome ahead but serendipity is more of a flutter-on-a-fruit-machine sort of outcome.’
‘Poor butterfly then, those machines are rigged.’
I’ve thought about this conversation a lot recently. We were best friends for years. Nothing exclusive. We each had other friends and sometimes lived in different towns for work or college – but we never lost touch. One thing about friendship is that kith is often placed lower in the relationship hierarchy than kin, and yet none of the kin did stories like we did. The grief of friends needs attention.
One evening we were talking when a ‘it could easily have been me’ tale started up. Except this wasn’t a tale. It was an account of a trip to an oncology clinic, complete with diagnosis and treatment plan. Brain tumour. Grade 3. Surgery. Chemo. These were definitely not butterfly words and they brought oceans of tears and grief to us both.
‘But why you? What’s caused it? Are you sure the hospital got it right?’
‘Serendipity, isn’t it? Just my luck. Have to wait and see what happens won’t we?’
What happened was disturbed vision, memory loss, head pain. But the person in the middle was often still available for chats and stories and tears. We muddled through. No rhyme nor reason; it could easily have been me. The fruit machines are, indeed rigged: butterflies are broken on a wheel.
The last days were mainly ones of oblivion. No more stories to share. The funeral was out of my domain and orchestrated by kin. My flowers had a simple message attached – ‘it could easily have been me’. When I thought about an epitaph I couldn’t do better than Serendipity. What a terrible waste.
