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No amount of words I could write here could ever express it, not fully. Not quite.

I can still hear her whisper “my daughter…what about my daughter” after the doctor informed her that this illness will kill her. That she must die of it. He said it so clearly and with no room for hope, you’d think of it as cruel if you had not heard him. His duty in that moment was to tell the truth. Any amount of lying would have been a disservice. It was like he chose his words carefully to show her the utmost respect.
Yet for a short while and against all odds, it seemed the chemo was beating back the cancer, even to the point the tests could no longer detect it. Jeanette started living life to the fullest again, at least on the good days. At first there were none of those, then a few… It seemed like a spectacular comeback was in the making. Neither the prescribed Fentanyl addiction nor her life-long bouts of depression could stop it. Jeanette despite her hurt and anger was stronger.

Within that last year, we saw each other a lot. Friends would pay for my weekly train rides because I was living at the poverty limit, a patient myself and living off benefits. We hugged each other longer and tighter than we used to. In a way everything was as before but heightened. We knew now that our time was limited. We joked around, went to the park, the zoo, the shops…Or just stayed home, finishing puzzles, or just chatting and drinking tea. I say “just chatting”, but Jeanette was one of these people where you could discuss absolutely everything with each other without judgement, resulting in deep conversations where - no matter how dark the subject matter - you would come away feeling lighter, brighter. Jeanette wasn’t draining my “social battery”. She was nourishing my soul (or whatever its scientific equivalent is).

A mantra of comfort, taken from the last page of the Harry Potter books 

But not long after she started recording music and dreaming of a future again, the cancer returned. Sneakily, cruelly taking residence inside of her brain, where the chemo couldn't reach, behind the blood brain barrier. It turned out they had not run any of those tests. It was a rare scenario, they said, so they only started checking her brain after multiple new tumours had brought on new unignorable symptoms. After that, an aggressive round of radiation therapy rendered her bed bound again. She was becoming oh so tired of being strong. For herself, and worse, for others.

The radiation did destroy the tumours, but somehow in the aftermath, fluid from all this dissolved tissue entered her spine and, very painfully, it took her life.

I remember the phone call I received from her mom that day. The calls I made. How devastating it was and how desperately I needed to know “Where is she?”, that I needed to see her, but of course I no longer could.

But I also remember looking at her when she was still alive, half a year or more prior, during one of my visits in the hospital, and being struck by the sheer miracle of her. Of her being alive. Her fragility, the fact that she was in so much danger for such a long time, having received this hopeless diagnosis, but yet here she is, talking, smiling, breathing. She seemed wondrous and endlessly precious. It's as if only death breathing down the necks of our loved ones pries open our eyes wide enough so that we can really truly see them.

Snaps from our last year (I'm the one on the left with glasses)

I sometimes credit the tragic death of my friend Jeanette with the unbearable urge to leave my home country. I just had to get out. For most of my life I've lived in a relatively small area of Germany, in a triangle between three cities, well-connected to each other by rail: Darmstadt, Mainz, and Frankfurt. I was building a great life there but grief is a strange beast. It changes you, maybe a bit like lace that’s ruined in the wash.

After loss, you don't want sunshine, the coffee to taste good, and everything just to go on as normal.

This sentiment is very well expressed in W H Auden’s famous “Funeral Blues”:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Source: https://allpoetry.com/funeral-blues

There are also many great songs about grief. It is something of a universal experience, unfortunately. A few really struck a chord with me and still do. For example, there's “Someone Great” by LCD Soundsystem, which may actually have been the first song in my long “JEANETTE” playlist:

I wish that we could talk about it

But there, that's the problem

With someone new I couldn't start it

Too late, for beginnings

The little things that made me nervous

Are gone, in a moment

I miss the way we used to argue

Locked, in your basement

I wake up and the phone is ringing

Surprised, as it's early

And that should be the perfect warning

That something's a problem

To tell the truth I saw it coming

The way you were breathing

But nothing can prepare you for it

The voice on the other end

The worst is all the lovely weather

I'm stunned, it's not raining

The coffee isn't even bitter

Because, what's the difference?

There's all the work that needs to be done

It's late, for revision

There's all the time and all the planning

And songs, to be finished

And it keeps coming

And it keeps coming

And it keeps coming

Till the day it stops

And it keeps coming

And it keeps coming

And it keeps coming

Till the day it stops

And it keeps coming

And it keeps coming

And it keeps coming

And it keeps coming

And it keeps coming

And it keeps coming

And it keeps coming

Till the day it stops

I wish that we could talk about it

But there, that's the problem

With someone new I could have started

Too late for beginnings

You're smaller than my wife imagined

Surprised, you were human

There shouldn't be this ring of silence

But what are the options?

When someone great is gone

When someone great is gone

When someone great is gone

When someone great is gone

When someone great is gone

When someone great is gone

When someone great is gone

When someone great is gone

We're safe, for the moment

Saved for the moment

I’m always befuddled when people say this song sounds “happy” to them. But even Spotify thinks that. Their algorithm sorts it into the “Upbeat Mix 1” for me. The official video makes the meaning quite clear though, with the person lost disturbingly appearing as a human-shaped void:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwoLACv_srQ&list=RDqwoLACv_srQ

Still from "Someone Great" music video

In my opinion, the “happy instrumentals” perfectly compliment the song, representing the relentlessness and madness of the world just going on after the death of a loved one. To me it’s basically another rendition of “Funeral Blues”, or maybe a distant spiritual successor if it. 

There are so many more songs I could list here, but I will try to somehow limit it to a few. One song strikingly appeared for me just on the day of Jeanette's funeral: “Spicks & Specks” by The BeeGees.

[Verse 1]
Where is the sun
That shone
On my head
The sun in my life
It is dead
It is dead

[Verse 2]
Where is the light
That would play
In my streets
And where are the friends
I could meet
I could meet

[Chorus 1]
Where are the girls
I left far behind
The spicks and the specks
Of the girls
On my mind

[Verse 1]
Where is the sun
That shone
On my head
The sun in my life
It is dead
It is dead

[Chorus 1]
Where are the girls
That I left far behind
The spicks and the specks
Of the girls
On my mind

[Chorus 1]
Where are the girls
I left far behind
The spicks and the specks
Of the girls
On my mind

[Solo - Barry Gibb]
Where is the girl
I loved all along
The girl that I loved
She is gone
She is gone

[Chorus 3]
All of my life
I call, yesterday
The spicks and the specks
Of my life
Gone away
[Chorus 3]
All of my life
I call, yesterday
The spicks and the specks
Of my life
Gone away

[Outro]
Everybody
Spicks and specks
Spicks and specks, yeah, ah
(Ahh) spicks and specks
Spicks and specks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBF6u_Qt-A0&list=RDrBF6u_Qt-A0

I don’t know if or why Spotify had omitted “Spicks & Specks” before. Did I just miss it? In any case it was suddenly there, on top of a “Best Of”. It hit with full force. On the train, I was bawling again. Jeanette passed away on July 24. It was the height of summer, no cloud in sight. Just blazing sun. The BeeGees had been positively surprising me with the sadness and drama of their music (I mean one song is literally called “New York Mining Disaster 1941”).

The Bee Gees, Masters of Sadness

Little moments like discovering a song that “connects” feel a bit like kindness from the universe. In the end, we are just looking for a bit of compassion from the world around us. Something that mirrors our grief, validates our sadness, and makes us feel like what we lost mattered. That there's some kind of logic or order (or rhythm) to it after all. Maybe being religious would help with that last bit too, but unfortunately I am not religious in the slightest. In my view, all we have is bodies, and a sort of ripple effect on the world and other bodies which can ripple on even after our bodies are gone.

These ripples can seem faint as they move outward and overlap with others but I am still hugely grateful that I have known my friend for the time we had together and I like to think that her positive influence on me and others continues on in some way even after we’re gone as well. Jeanette was one of these people who saw good in me when I struggled seeing it myself. Having loving friends like her healed many psychological wounds.

Another song I uniquely connect with Jeanette is Kate Bush’s Love and Anger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyEHKGDSg5I

It lay buried here, it lay deep inside me
It's so deep I don't think that I can speak about it
It could take me all of my life
But it would only take a moment to
Tell you what I'm feeling
But I don't know if I'm ready yet
You come walking into this room
Like you're walking into my arms
What would I do without you?
Take away the love and the anger
And a little piece of hope holding us together
Looking for a moment that'll never happen
Living in the gap between past and future
Take away the stone and the timber
And a little piece of rope won't hold it together
If you can't tell your sister
If you can't tell a priest
'Cause it's so deep you don't think that you can speak about it
To anyone
And you tell it to your heart?
Can you find it in your heart
To let go of these feelings
Like a bell to a Southerly wind?
We could be like two strings beating
Speaking in sympathy
What would we do without you?
Two strings speak in sympathy
Take away the love and the anger
And a little piece of hope holding us together
Looking for a moment that'll never happen
Living in the gap between past and future
Take away the stone and the timber
And a little piece of rope won't hold it together
We're building a house of the future together
(What would we do without you?)
Well, if it's so deep you don't think that you can speak about it
Just remember to reach out and touch the past and the future
Well, if it's so deep you don't think you can speak about it
Don't ever think that you can't change the past and the future
You might not, not think so now
But just you wait and see, someone will come to help you

By pure happenstance it seems to reflect back so many aspects of our friendship and history. By listening to it I can enjoy the fantastic music, commemorate my friend, and have a bit of a cry too.

Kate Bush in the official video for Love and Anger