THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE

 Ugh, I had to do a very hard thing the other day.

A few years ago, I bought myself, and my late friend, Sara, a couple of friendship lamps for Christmas.

What is a friendship lamp, you ask? (Well, maybe you didn't, but I'm going to pretend you did in case someone new has shown up.) Friendship lamps are a set of two little LED lamps that you hook to the internet. You each get a code and go to the website and register the lamps together so that they get linked, and when you turn them on, when you touch your lamp, the lamp at your friend's house changes color, or blinks, or whatever they are designed to do. Basically, it's a nice, subtle way to let someone know you're thinking about them. I mean, yeah, you could text or call or write a letter, but this way you can just say "Hey, I'm thinking about you right this second!" and it's a nice, quick, warm fuzzy you can send without making a big production out of it.  Shut up, it's nice.

I got one for Sara because I missed her and because I knew she was very unhappy living so far away from her friends and family. Her marriage wasn't going well (I can say that now, considering...) and she was lonely. When I found those lamps, I got them immediately so that she would always have a link to someone back home. I can only imagine what it's like living far away from all the people and things you love, and I wanted to give her a link back so she would know she wasn't forgotten about. 

I think she liked having it as much as I did. It was cool to be sitting next to it and it suddenly turn blue because she had tapped it at her house. Then I'd tap it and it would turn red at her house.  I dunno, it's hard to explain, but it was comforting.

And then she died.

The lamp stayed where it was for months and months because it felt weird to move it. I have a hard time letting things go, we all know that, but getting rid of that lamp felt almost sacrilegious. How can you just get rid of a link to your best friend?

So, every time I'd sit in my living room and it got quiet, I'd inevitably end up staring at that lamp and it would hurt my heart. Losing a friend and knowing there is no hope of ever seeing or hearing from them again is agony. Looking at the lamp just reminded me over and over that it would never light up again. I knew I couldn't keep torturing myself like that, because that is what it was: torture. A mild form, to be sure, but torture all the same.

So I finally moved the lamp. Then it sat in the new place for months and months and I could still see it and it still felt bad. So finally, I had to make myself get rid of it last Friday. I didn't really want to, but I didn't think it was a healthy thing to have something staring me in the face that made me feel like that. You shouldn't keep shrines of the dead, because that way lies madness.

I felt like I should have some kind of ceremony or do something specific, but that felt weird. So I simply had to throw it away. That felt very wrong, but I didn't know what else to do. I suppose I could have bought a second lamp and sent it to someone else, but there is no one else that wants to be reminded that I'm thinking of them. Not anymore.

So I threw my best friend lamp into the garbage and I still want to cry, but I won't/can't because there is nothing that will change the fact that she's dead and I'll never see her again, and she'll never touch that lamp again. It would just be a dark reminder that my best friend is gone. 

I know that in time it won't be so bad. Such is life. I'm sure this was an important step in closure, and closure is important. 

Anyway...it was a hard thing.