Best Friends Forever

America has a garbage attitude toward grief — we know this. Bereavement leave generally means you get 2-3 business days to mourn a partner, a child, a parent, a sibling.

But what about when your very best friend in the world dies? What then? When the funeral is over and the casseroles have been eaten, how do you reckon with an irreplaceable friendship?

These are some of the questions Janya is forced to ask herself after the death of her very best friend, Michele.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

NARRATION
Hello. I’m Nora McInerny. And this is Terrible, Thanks for Asking. The show where we ask how you’re doing, and we actually WANT to hear the real answer.
Today, I’m starting with a question. No, not how are you. Something just as important, though.
Do you have a best friend? Like, a best-best friend. And please, don’t be one of those people who is like, oh, my boyfriend?
No, not your boyfriend. Not your wife. Your BEST. FRIEND.
The person you call when you and your boyfriend break UP.
Or when you find the person you’re going to love forever.
The person who finishes your sentences and laughs at your jokes before you even get them out, because you just have that sort of Bluetooth connection between your brains.
THAT best friend. Well, you’re lucky. Maybe you know that already. Maybe every day you thank your stars for the fact that your paths crossed at exactly the right time. Or maybe you don’t, in which case, just…call them right now. Or text them. Some people view phone calls as an act of aggression. I know my producer Hans does. He will not answer when I call. I get texts back immediately saying “what’s up?” BUT I LOVE PHONE CALLS. Call me. Anyway, this is Janya. Talking about her best friend, Michelle.
Janya: She was the oldest of six children… first born, take charge, so smart… but so easy to be around. So smart and commanding in her career but not intimidating or bossy or… a pain you know… just so easy and just lovely. And… she did those big things she… went to Australia for three weeks by herself because she wanted to go to Australia. I was the one who would wait for someone to want to come with me I would have never done that. She did that. And she bicycled in South Korea for three weeks with another friend because she wanted to. So she never held back. She… she just took all of life on… head first… and was so inspiring that way. NARRATION
Michelle and Janya weren’t childhood friends. They met in their 20s. That malleable period between childhood and adulthood when you’re still open to the possibilities of every social encounter. Before you start leaving parties at 9pm and fantasizing about your early bedtime while you’re having appetizers. When Janya and Michele met, they just… fit. It was like Michelle just sort of clicked into the best friend shaped space that Janya was missing. They were both living in Seattle.
Janya: So I was 27. It was 2003 and I… got my first real job out of college and… Michelle was friends of friends of my new boss and… all kind of young professional, late 20s gals and… there was this book club that met at a bar. I don’t think we read… ever, anything… that was just a ruse and it was very quickly a wine club and then morphed into a travel club.
[MUSIC] NARRATION
Michelle was amazing. Magnetic. The kind of woman where you’re like, wait, I want to be like Michelle! I want to travel the world and have a super important job but still remember to call my friends on their birthdays. Dave, I’m sorry I forgot your birthday for the past 10 years. Now, there are friendships and there are FRIENDSHIPS in all caps. Both are valuable and wonderful. But the second kind is really rare and very special. It’s not romantic…but it kind of edges up on that territory. This is the friend that you call when something goes wrong — even when you’re happily married. This is the friend who shares a bed with you when you travel, and it’s not weird even for a second. This is the kind of friend you would do anything for.
That’s not where Janya and Michelle started. But it’s where they ended up. Janya: [00:03:06] it wasn’t a bolt of lightning. But it also didn’t take forever. In 2005, in June… we went to Mexico for her 30th birthday and I think that that’s when our bond really solidified. It was Michelle and I and two other gals Jennifer and Kim. Jennifer and Kim were the blondes and we were the brunettes. And so we had our room together and that was really when things… really jelled. And I spent a week as her roommate and really got to know her. Nora: Here’s how being somebody’s roommate on a vacation can go. You never speak again and you hate every little thing that they do. You’re like “why does she brush her teeth so loudly. Oh my God” it’s like “if I have to hear her breathe one more time” or… you know you feel like you felt about Michelle where you’re like “let’s do this forever let’s do this again. OK? Even bigger longer. Just the two of us.” Janya: So… it was so epic so… I remember this like one of the first nights we went and decided to have… lobster on the beach. There were four of us in this group so lobster on the beach and it was really like… just this kind of melted oil for the dipping butter. It was really bad and the whole… just like this over do… lobster it just… it didn’t work out well for her stomach so that night… she was sick. And I… ran out to the deck because I can’t… I can’t do vomit. I just I cannot do vomit. I cannot be there for you. I’m not your guy if you’re sick.
Nora: I’ll be your best friend but I am not going to be there for lobster puke. Janya: And it was like… we just knew like these these are our limitations. She’s like I can’t drink as much as you. I can’t you know go all night and I can’t have all these crazy foods you know. And I was like and I can’t I can’t be there for you when you’re sick but otherwise… it was it was great and… we started planning… when we turned 40… let’s do this. Whether it’s Hawaii or Vegas or Mexico… whatever we have by then… kids husbands we’re going to leave it all behind and we’re going to do this. NARRATION Michelle and Janya’s relationship started in Seattle. It solidified during that trip to Mexico, and it became…the capital F kind of friendship. For Janya, it was the right friendship at the right time. Janya: My husband after college went to law school so I became just… that was really lonely just because he was gone so much so… you know I never had a partner hanging around so…. And I was a real homebody.
NARRATION
But eventually developed into a long-distance friendship. Michelle’s career in communications kept growing, and took her all around the world. Janya started raising pigs… and became a mother. Of human babies. Life for both of them got really…lifey. All of these commitments could have pulled Janya and Michelle in completely separate directions. Nobody would blame either of them if they had. Most friendships don’t end with a blowout, they just sort of…dissipate into the ether, swallowed up by the realities of being an adult. But instead, they stayed close in SPITE of the distance. Michelle was still Janya’s person. Even when she was halfway around the world. Which is where she was when Janya’s grandmother died. In her arms. After weeks of taking care of her and watching her decline. It was a heartbreaking moment for Janya. And of all the people in her life? She wanted to share it with Michelle. And Michelle was there for her. Even though she was in Taiwan. And it was her birthday. Janya called. And Michelle answered.
Janya: And she just cried with me. You know she didn’t make any comments or platitudes to try to be comforting. She just cried with me. [MUSIC]
And… my pain was her pain and she wanted so desperately to be there for me but she wasn’t allowed to come back into the United States because for working in Taiwan and there were rules. And she talked about well maybe I can fly into Mexico and sneak across the border to be with you. And that’s who she was. You know when it was her birthday and I don’t even remember if I wished her a happy birthday. I’m sure that I did but… she just let it be about me and my pain. And so even though we were separated by thousands of miles she was never distant. NARRATION
You know what makes no sense? How people who are wonderful just…die. And how awful people basically get to live forever? They do. If you don’t believe me, just consult anyone else who only deals in anecdotal evidence. They’ll tell you the same thing: all the dead people they know? Wonderful. The jerks they know? STILL BREATHING. NOT FAIR.
And that’s where this is going. That things aren’t fair. And sometimes, wonderful people die for absolutely no reason. Right after they visit you and your family. Michelle’s job as a communications executive had taken her from Seattle – where she and Janya had first met – to Minnesota. But Michelle would still sneak back west to visit, and she’d always stop to see Janya and her family at their pig farm.
Janya: And I know there were a couple of times it was March of 2014… about eight months before she died. She was… she’d flown to from Minnesota to Hawaii for work and she was flying back through Seattle from Hawaii on her way home… and it was just like midnight Friday through noon on Sunday and she didn’t want to tell anybody that she was going to be in town because everybody loved her and everybody wanted a piece of her and everybody wanted to see her. So she’s like “can I just come stay with you and we’ll just hunker down and hang out.” And so I loved being a refuge for her. And it was the best weekend. And we slept in the king sized bed together and we went wine tasting and my husband spent three hours making a quiche for her which ended up having a lot of dirt in it because of the spinach. And I mean he’s been hours it was this eight egg quiche with feta and spinach and sausage from our pig farm. It was the most beautiful thing. And now it’s so funny… she was so gracious when she got that mouthful of dirt but I remember sharing this bottle of rosé with her and I remember sitting with her outside and my 150 pound dog was pressed into her… and she was wearing my husband’s jacket and just being a refuge for her and sitting out on our farm in the woods… and nobody knew she was in town and just being that for her and I miss being that for somebody [crying]. [PAUSE]
Nora: [ She sounds like the kind of friend that everyone wishes they were.
Janya: Exactly. Exactly. She was exactly that.
Nora: And like effortlessly.
Janya: Effortlessly. And I just… I hope I hope that that I was as good to her as she was to me… [MUSIC]
Janya: So two days before my 39th birthday… on November 4th… I got a call from Stephanie… who had been friends with Michelle before I knew Michelle… And I almost didn’t answer. I didn’t want to answer just because I had just started pasta to boil. And… so I answered on the last ring and you know are you sitting down and have you heard about Michelle? And I’m like… “if I get to hear about Michelle I’m going to hear it from Michelle. So what are you talking about?” And she just starts talking about Michelle being in the hospital and having… a brain event… and she didn’t say the word stroke but something about her brain bleeding and… I just felt myself blanche. Just that “what are you talking about” that denial just the floor drop out just just raking the air. “What are you saying?” And of course the first thing you think is I got to call Michelle to get to the bottom of this. NARRATION
We are going to take a break here. You’re going to call or text your closest friends and tell them you love them. And so am I. I’m going to go pee. [[MIDROLL]]
And we’re back. You just checked in with your BFFs. And Janya just got a terrible phone call about her best friend, Michelle. Michelle had suffered a brain event. A stroke. It was shocking. Michelle was healthy. And happy. She had just eaten a forkful of dirty spinach at Janya’s house! And now Janya is in her kitchen with dinner cooking…
Janya: My kids are still waiting for dinner so…
Nora: So how do you feel at this point?
Janya: Panicked. I feel cold. I feel panicked. I feel desperate. And my husband walked in the door and I was still on the phone with Stephanie and I just looked at him and I said something about Michelle in the hospital. Michelle’s in the hospital. We didn’t know a lot because we were in Seattle and she and her husband were in Minnesota. So on my birthday two days later on November 6th I called the stroke Association and with the information that I had… which was very little… I just said can you tell me maybe what happened? And it was devastating [choking up] to find out that… in the best case scenario… after everything going right… that in five years she would be maybe 70 percent of her former herself. And it was just the most hopeless conversation that ever had. And I knew it was really really bad… and I just… there was nothing I could do. Nothing.
And I got off the phone with them and… I’m in my robe and I look outside and the pigs have escaped the pasture… and it’s just chaos. And I put my boots on… and my bathrobe… and I’m just hysterical I’m laughing and I’m crying and I’m like this is my birthday like this… you know and she is she is going to you know… she was one of the first to call me and the phone is not ringing she is not calling me. And the stroke Association has just told me the worst possible news… that my best friend who bicycled through Korea went to Australia by herself… [choking up] who’s just the most beautiful light… is going out… but I have to show up and deal with these pigs. You know and I have to… I have to keep going. I have to just keep going.
Nora: You have to chase these fucking pigs now.
Janya: And there and the pig is screaming at me. And it’s this four week old piglet… and the mom is screaming at me and I’m like oh my god. Like I just can’t make it stop. [MUSIC SOMETHING – PAUSE]
And I had been… I had been through enough death already to know that this is how it works. It doesn’t matter who’s dying or dead. You need toilet paper. It doesn’t matter. There is no pause. {{PAUSE}}
NARRATION
There’s never a pause. Your best friend is in the hospital? You still gotta go catch the pigs. Or feed your kids. Or finish that GD powerpoint so Janice doesn’t email you again and CC your boss. Janya catches the pigs. She feeds her kids. She cries. She waits. And then the phone rings, and word arrives that Michelle is dead. Janya: And I just I just hit the floor. I was so desperately sad [crying]. And the next day the overwhelming sensation that I had was terror because I knew… at that point that there was never going to be a price that I could pay to make it stop. My dad had died at my engagement party while I was holding him. And that wasn’t a high enough price to pay. And my grandma had died while I was holding her. And that wasn’t enough price to pay. And I miscarried twice and that wasn’t enough price to pay… and I’d lost my best friend and that wasn’t a big enough price to pay… that I could never make it stop. There was never going to be anything that said you’re done. And that was the first time I realized it. And I wondered if my children were next or my husband because I finally knew that I couldn’t pay enough of a price to make it stop. Nobody was safe. [Choking up] And I couldn’t believe though we were not… going to go on that trip. That I had just turned 39 and she would never be more than thirty nine. She wasn’t going to make it. She wasn’t going to make it to 40 and I was going to make it without her. [Crying] And it was just most unfair just so sad that she wasn’t going to make it.
[MUSIC OUT]
NARRATION
And…now what?
Best friends are harder to make the older you get. A quick review of my fifth grade journals reveals that I had approximately seven best friends that year. That’s…too many, baby Nora, get your shit together. As kids, friendships just happen. You spend all day with at least 30 other people in your peer group with a similarly limited social sphere and likely common interests. You spend enough time in proximity – either because your parents or your teachers are forcing it – and boom! Friendships!
As adults it’s harder you… yes, you’re still surrounded by people all day. But by now, you’re old enough to know that at least half of them are jerks or dipwads. If they aren’t jerks or dipwads, they’re staring at their phone so like, how can you bust in and just, make them your friend? If they AREN’T on your phone, what if they’re not interested in any of the same things you are? Or even worse, what if they already have a full friend roster.
After a certain age we… do we kind of stop making friends? Or at least making friends of… real depth?
Janya: [Choking up] And the thing I realized after she was gone is that… everybody’s taken at this point. Everybody has their best friend and there isn’t room in anybody’s life for a new one. And I don’t know wh ere I fit… and it’s… when we met each other we were at such a jumping off point in life… when you’re in your late 20s and you’re just you know your career is getting started and you’re either newly married or you’re seriously dating or you know whatever. And now. People aren’t shopping for a new best friend. And so I don’t know [choking up]… if that will ever happen again. NARRATION
Not to be a total ruiner, but…it won’t ever happen again.
Not like this. There won’t be another Michelle. There won’t be someone who shares your history in that same way, because that history has been written. If your dad dies, you don’t get a new dad. You might get closer to an UNCLE? If your husband dies, you CAN get a new husband (ASK ME HOW!) but it’s not a replacement FOR that first husband. But when your best friend dies, you don’t just promote someone in your existing friend group. So I’m not saying she’ll never have another best friend. She might. She just won’t have another Michelle. She won’t have another friend like THIS.
And Janya HAS made other friends. One is a 73 year old who takes her to Bruce Springsteen concerts..
But it isn’t the same. Janya: I never left an experience with Michelle like “I hope I said the right thing or I hope I didn’t sound blah blah blah”. There was never that and now I do that a lot more often. I’m a lot less secure. You can’t start… time with someone like you can’t… you can’t say let’s start off having 15 years under our belts. You have to start right now and that takes time and that trust and that understanding and that connection just takes a long time. [MUSIC]
Janya: My dog died in January… my beloved beloved dog… Fiona… now, seven months later I start thinking about other a new dog… and I have hope in my heart that someday I’ll love again like that. I won’t have Fiona but I’ll have something close. You know like I’ll start thinking about… a little puppy coming into my life… and I’ll start thinking you know I can do that again… as much as it hurt I’ll do that again. And I don’t have that hope for a best friend… and maybe I should picture it the way that I picture a puppy. Maybe it’s that easy and maybe it’s not.
NARRATION
I don’t think easy is the word we’re looking for. I think the word we’re looking for is POSSIBLE. It’s possible to meet new friends and make new connections. To open your heart wider. Not to replace the people we’ve lost –that’s NOT possible — but to make space next to the love we have for them, and the experiences we shared with them. Somehow, it IS possible. There won’t be another Michelle. That relationship can never and will never be replicated. Janya can’t turn someone else into Michelle. But Janya can try to be a Michelle to someone else.
[PAUSE WITH MUSIC]
Janya: I hope… that I was as good to her as she was to me. And I think part of what I’ve struggled with since her death is putting that forward… that legacy of being such a good friend.
[CALL WITH DAVE]
[MUSIC OUT]
[THEME MUSIC]
CREDITS
This was Terrible, Thanks for Asking, written and hosted by me, Nora McInerny, and produced by Hans Buetow. I also wrote a book called It’s Okay to Laugh, Crying Is Cool Too. You can buy it where you buy books!
If you want a bunch of new friends, support TTFA with a donation and join our Terrible Club. It’s a real place (on Facebook) for our supporters to connect with one another, and with us. We share show ideas, clips, feelings…and we’ve watched friendships happen! It’s awesome. I love all you Terribles. Our music is by Geoffrey Wilson. Jeyca Maldonado-Medina is our intern. Hannah Meacock Ross is my lifeline. And our project manager.
This episode received MASSIVE HELP from Samara Freemark, Rehman Tungekar, and Suzanne Schaeffer. I’m really not a good friend and I’m sorry. Erin, Cara, Gene, Dave, Moe, Lindsay…i love you. and I have no idea why you love me.
Terrible, Thanks for Asking is a part of American Public Media. Janya really is a pig farmer. Her website is Red Feather Farm dot org. ——————-
SS: More Nora at the end. A couple points she comes in at the end and I remembered that she was there. More guidance.
SF: I felt that through the whole thing. A lot of Janya and then not much of Nora. Made times Nora came in feel jarring and confusing.
SS: Is the end too much tied in a bow? Need a more linear conclusion… talking about puppy is good.
RT: No one else who will have been in her formative moments, share her memories – no one will ever be like that again. Maybe focus on more of that as a conclusion. What was most compelling about it is that no one else will occupy that space.
SF: Janya feels maybe a little like her emotions are outsized and mabye a little nutso. I don’t want to be your friend, lady. Who will take over every emotional need in my life? That’s by the end. And I think it’s because we go through this thing soudning like two people who are in love… and she’s looking for that again. This person is not actually like a puppy. You can’t find another Michelle. But we can maybe find others who will not fill the Mcihelle-sized hole.
SS: Maybe with more Nora interjections… I recognize what she’s feeling here. Felt at times… man, it’s all about Janya, isn’t it… having that connection to Nora would help.
RT: Want to know earlier that she dies. To build tension – need more signposting because I was like ok… SF: This is a very special relationship, though. She sleeps in the bed when she comes to the farm. More in the script to emphasize the outsize intensity of this
Not romantic love… but another kind of love… sometimes you tumble into these passionate relationships that are not romantic… but you’re in this thing… and it’s a different kind of relationship.
The interest of that would carry you for a chunk of time before you get to death. Build up this crazy intensity, and then introduce the possibility of losing it.
SS: Why did she call the stroke association instead of her parents, or talkign with her husband.
SF: Something felt a little not normal about her. But that didn’t turn me off. She was a really good talker. Made interesting points. Not all in tragedy. A lot of crying… but I don’t know what I would lose because she’s saying really interesting stuff. There are lovely moments with the quiche and the pigs. Wasn’t hating her while listening, but aksed questions – why not ask your husband? Made it feel like Michelle was more important than anyone else in her life.
SF: This relationship is more intense than its label. So how are you supposed to feel when that relationship is torn from you.
SF: The cut about letting go… you are not letting go… this woman has not done this yet.
RT: Through the funeral was waiting for this cathartic moment to let go… something to address it… but nothing happened.
SF: What if that cut comes right before… to set up… she knows she needs to let go… but the impossibility of replacing someone… more towards the end. Because letting go really means letting go of this image of the relationship… of this person. Letting go fits with a later thought in the story.
(Is the funeral worth the time?)
RT: Nora’s interjections, like the weather, are a moment to breathe. Are there any others like that?
SF: Are there any thoughts from her about burying two people close together that could help us break up the tone… and say somethign funny…
SS: And validating.
SF: IF you move this idea of heirarchy… addressing in script earlier… how do you think about these relationsips that are more than their terms and how they fit into the grief heirarchy… you could lose the funeral section with the sisters… liked that part the least… the sisters comforting her is not a good image… can lose that whole thing.
SS: The whole outsized grieving is supported by the hierarchy.
RT: One small line that threw me… people qualify their relationships… thought she would talk about the other friends… their relationships not as strong as hers… that was what made me feel like it was about her.
SS: At very beginning… adjust how you introduce Janya as Animal Wellfare Pork person.
SF: Needs to have some Nora sauce that emphasizes how different their paths are. Not in a pejorative way… but now it’s in this place between am I supposed to think this is a silly job or not?
SF: Her grandma dying is in her script and tape. Needs to change.
SF: Thing before midroll about peeing… because Nora is so little in the tape beforehand and there’s so little narration… that line felt a little cold. Nora more in the script will help.
SS: Talking about the intensity of the friendship… gets the call about the hospital… it was nine days before she died. They are super intense friends… she didn’t fly out to see her in the hospital? Maybe obscure time a little. Or say why. It made me doubt the narrator – intense relationship but you didn’t know she was in the hospital… you didn’t see her in this crisis state… you’re preparing to go to funeral and it’s all about you… Nora validating her feelings or filling in gaps could help a lot.
SF: I agree so much.