by Ryan Manion
We laughed hysterically at the ridiculous predicament we’d somehow found ourselves in, and we searched for someone who could offer a jump to two giggling girls and a giant HAPPY BIRTHDAY sign. Eventually, we found someone. That predicament sealed our relationship and, to this day, we still think of my twenty-third birthday as our “Friendversary.”
She’s been with me through every step of my journey. When Rob and I lived in Virginia, Melissa would come over for slumber parties, so I didn’t have to spend the nights alone when he was out training in the field.
When Rob deployed to Afghanistan, she visited me in California so I wouldn’t have to spend my birthday alone. She was there searching casualty lists with me just weeks before I received the fateful knock at the door.
She was one of the first people I called when I learned of his death. When I traveled to Washington to lay him to rest, Melissa was the one who picked me up and took me shopping to find a black purse to match my funeral dress.
I’d never been one to show emotion outwardly, but I had to channel my sadness somewhere, especially in the first few months of being alone.
Usually, it came out in the form of a 2 a.m. email to Melissa in which I wrote my deepest, saddest thoughts. She was three hours behind me in Virginia, and when she woke up to one of those emails, I’m sure she worried about whether I’d made it through the night.
We never had that kind of intense exchange of emotion in person or on the phone, and Melissa never pushed me to. She knew it wasn’t my style. She was the patient recipient of all my darkest feelings. She simply absorbed them and accepted them. That was exactly the show of support that I needed. She was also the first person I called when I wanted to pawn my Lilly Pulitzer quilt off on someone. I couldn’t return it and I also couldn’t bear to look at it at the top of my closet anymore.
“No thanks, Heather,” she said. “That thing is way too loud. It’s never going to match anything in my house—or anyone else’s for that matter.” Brutal honesty, another sign of a best friend. Melissa’s candor is at least half her charm.
She’s been a constant; one of the truly good things in my life when I had very few good things to think of. She’s the friend who keeps sunshine in my heart on even the darkest of days and reminds me that life is still good.
Wherever I was, she fielded those scary, late-night emails with patience and quiet concern, and ultimately, she pushed me to learn to appreciate life’s little joys once again.
She even helped me rediscover the magic of Disneyland.
I was three years out from having lost Rob, and I was ready for an adventure to take me outside myself. I saw something advertised about a series of half marathons through the Disney parks, which are located on the East and West Coasts. If you completed a Disney-themed half marathon on each coast within a year, you got a special commemorative medal. That proved to be enough incentive for me to give it a go. I called up Melissa and pitched her the idea of us taking five mini-vacations together by running five half marathons together in various Disney parks.
“What are you getting me into, Heather? Can’t we do the vacations without the running?” She was appropriately skeptical.
“Oh, come on. I’m going to sign you up. It will be fun.” Melissa would teasingly drag her feet now and again, but with enough nudging, I knew she’d always jump on board. Being open to joining an adventure, even if reluctantly, is the mark of a true great friend.
Over the next year, from 2013 to 2014, Melissa and I traveled from Orlando, Florida, to Anaheim, California, in silly costumes of famous cartoon duos. We played everything from Snow White and the Evil Queen to Mike Wazowski and his sidekick Sulley, of Monsters, Inc., fame. We trotted with Tinker Bell, pranced with princesses, and did the Dumbo Double Dare (a 10K and half marathon in a single weekend), ending each race with a well-earned glass of wine and a Dole Whip. Or two or three. We were never fast, but we weren’t out to compete. We were simply there to enjoy the show and nourish a friendship that had been years in the making.
In 2014, we celebrated our Friendversary once again, but decided to do it up big this time. I was turning thirty. It was the first time I was reaching an age that was older than Rob would ever be, and I wanted to get my mind off things. Rob and I had always dreamed of taking a Hawaiian vacation, so I invited Melissa to make the trip with me.
“Come on,” I nudged. “A week on the beach? It’ll be great.”
At first, it had seemed extravagant, and maybe even a little odd to take a trip like that with a friend instead of a life partner. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it would have been silly not to take the leap. Melissa was one of the closest relationships I had. It was nontraditional and not the way I had imagined taking the trip, but she brought fun and humor with her wherever she went. I needed both.
“I’m in,” she said.
And—with that two-word response—Melissa gave me permission to look forward to adventures once again. Time and time again, she has reminded me that it is okay to have fun and that I deserve to enjoy life, even if I don’t have Rob here to enjoy it alongside me.
Three years later, we returned to Hawaii to celebrate our ten-year Friendversary. We always joked that she was my significant other now anyway, so it only seemed appropriate to celebrate these milestones together.
We stayed at the Four Seasons Maui and it felt absolutely opulent. We were celebrating our milestone in the lap of luxury. My mom even had balloons and champagne sent to our room with a note wishing us the happiest of anniversaries. We realized that we may have taken the joke just a little too far that time, because the staff had no idea what the nature of our relationship was, and how they were supposed to be treating us.
“Welcome to the Four Seasons,” the front desk agent greeted us at check-in. “And what brings you to Hawaii?”
We looked at each other. “Um, vacation,” we responded.
“Oh, how wonderful!” She smiled. “And, er, how do you all know each other?” She was feeling us out.
“We worked together,” I told her. She looked at me as if expecting me to say more. I think she was waiting for me to finish,…and then we started seeing each other, and now we’re in love.
Former co-workers don’t take trips together to the Four Seasons in Hawaii. In fact, I think we were the only couple there not honeymooning. I could understand her confusion. Of course, we got a kick out of that and leaned into the joke whenever we felt we could do so inconspicuously. It could have felt depressing to find myself on a honeymoon with a girlfriend after my husband was killed. But somehow, Melissa made it entertaining.
When I lost Rob, I lost my husband and my entire future, yes. But I also lost my best friend; that special person whom I could have fun perusing the aisles of a grocery store with, or who made a simple trip to a fast-food joint an event worth remembering for years to come. All the pain of losing my husband and my future almost overshadowed the fact that I’d lost a friend, too.
I forgot what it was like to have a partner like that in my life, one who could make even the mundane extraordinary.
For years now, Melissa has served as a sounding board when I think I’m going crazy; a patient listener when I want to lament; and a fun distraction who can take my mind off my pain when I need it the most. She knew me before, during, and after the most defining experience of my life, and our relationship has only grown stronger in the years since.
There was nothing for me after Rob died. Just a dark stretch of emptiness with no end in sight. It was terrifying when I considered that that was all that was left for me in this life. My friendship with Melissa was one of the few things I had to hang on to in those desperate days. And I clung to it for dear life. She stood with me through the rough patches, and because of her, I’ve been able to recover the feelings of excitement and anticipation that I had thought were gone forever.
This is the beauty of friendship. Friends can’t take away the hurt that life throws at us, and good ones don’t bother
trying. They just sit patiently and hold your hand through the process. They don’t try to erase your bad feelings or gloss over your experiences.
In fact, they’ll even agree with you when you tell them your life sucks. I mean, let’s be honest. Sometimes it does. Why deny it? Believe it or not, it’s nice to get that kind of affirmation. It’s nice to feel heard. And then, after hearing you, and when they sense that you’re ready for it, they infuse excitement and laughter back into what has become a cold, dusty existence.
When they can’t drag you out of your house for happy hour, friends will show up on your doorstep with a seven-dollar bottle of wine anyway. A good friend is someone you couldn’t keep away even if you tried. And when you’re grieving, believe me, you do try.
I consider myself doubly fortunate because the people I have befriended, like Melissa and Rob, aren’t just my reality-TV-binge-watching buddies, though they certainly have played that role as well. They also happen to be my role models.
Since my husband was killed, I’ve met even more of these admirable people. When you’re wandering down a lonely road, with no trail blazed in front of you, a good role model can be a critical resource in forging ahead, just as much as a trusted friend is.
It’s always easier to move forward when you know that someone else has walked in your shoes and made it to the other side. Just when I thought it wasn’t possible for me to move forward another step in my grief, I met a woman about my age who had lost her husband just weeks before I lost Rob.
From what I could see, she was not only getting up every morning and functioning as a real, live human being, but she was also working in a job she loved; was involved in a rich social life that she had created; was finding meaning and purpose after her loss; and seemed genuinely happy. As soon as I talked to her for the first time, I knew I needed to know her secret.
The woman was Amy Looney, a few years before she became Amy Looney Heffernan. And it was my trusty financial adviser, Chip Stratmann, who introduced us. I must have made quite an impression on Chip after the episode in his office with the financial road map. Like Melissa after reading one of my 2 a.m. emails, he must have worried about what my future might hold.
Then one day, Chip was reading an article in the San Diego Union-Tribune. It was an op-ed written by Amy Looney, a young widow who had lost her husband, Brendan, only weeks before I’d lost Rob. She wanted to do something positive to continue his legacy. Brendan had been more than “a warrior for freedom,” Amy had written. She wanted people to remember him as “an ambassador of kindness” as well, and to preserve that memory she was committing to performing ten random acts of kindness for strangers over the next ninety days in his honor. She was asking the rest of San Diego to join her.
Chip, in all his wisdom, knew I would be able to learn something from this Amy Looney, and he found a way to contact her. He asked if she would be willing to speak with me, as someone who had felt similar pain.
Amy immediately accepted the opportunity to chat. Chip told me that Amy was now working for a military nonprofit organization that supported both returning veterans and families of the fallen. He arranged for me to connect with Amy via phone the week before she was to move to Washington to open an office for the nonprofit, called the Travis Manion Foundation.
I was so nervous going into that phone call. What was I supposed to say? I imagined how the conversation might go: Hi, uh…I noticed you lost your husband. Me too. Let’s get coffee and talk about how miserable we both are.
I couldn’t help but feel that this phone meeting could be disastrous, and I was even a little bitter that I had agreed to participate. At the time, small talk with a complete stranger didn’t seem like what I was looking for.
When it came time for Amy’s call, I answered the phone timidly. I was greeted by an even-keeled voice that was filled with warmth and authenticity. I honestly don’t remember much of what Amy and I talked about that day. I do remember that my uneasiness disappeared in the first two or three minutes and that the conversation became fluid and easy after that. We didn’t chat long, but before we hung up, Amy invited me to join an event for the Travis Manion Foundation that was scheduled to take place the following week.
She would already be in the midst of her move east and wouldn’t make it herself, but she assured me that I’d have the chance to meet other staff members as well as veterans and families of the fallen who were part of the nonprofit’s community. I’d always been on the shy side, and since Rob’s death, I had been even less likely to put myself out there in unfamiliar settings, but something in Amy’s voice told me I should make this event a priority.
I showed up the following week, knowing very little about the Travis Manion Foundation. It turned out that Amy had invited me to a training session for new volunteers. It was a classroom-style orientation in a room filled with a dozen other people who were all either former military or Gold Star family members like me.
The training was to certify volunteers to serve as mentors to local youths as part of a character-development and leadership program. The concept was simple: Take a group of people who had once been connected with military life and give them the tools to share their stories to inspire the next generation of leaders.
The training began by equipping us with the ability to deliver a presentation to high school students. The veterans would draw from their experiences with military leaders, and the families of the fallen would share stories of their loved ones to inspire young leaders to live with character.
I loved the idea of some young person learning about Rob and wanting to emulate his qualities of humor and kindness. But I was terrified at the prospect of getting up in front of a room full of students to talk about the love of my life. I found the volunteer coordinator during a break and shared my concern.
“Um, public speaking isn’t exactly my thing,” I explained to her. That was putting it mildly. In fact, I was so uncomfortable speaking in front of a crowd that it had become an inside joke between Rob and me. Whenever I was nervous about attending some military get-together or unfamiliar social event, Rob would jokingly convince me that I was expected to stand up and put on a skit in front of the audience as soon as I arrived. I spared the volunteer coordinator this little anecdote, but I had to make sure she knew where I was coming from.
“Look,” I told her. “I really love this program, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to be one of your speakers. I want to work with you all, and I love what you all stand for. I’ll do just about anything else you need.”
“Oh, don’t even worry about it.” She smiled. “I totally understand. I’m glad you came. I’m sure there’s something we can find at the Travis Manion Foundation that fits better for your style. What are you looking for?”
I was a little taken aback by the question because I hadn’t really thought about it. I was here because my financial adviser had read an article by some stranger and had set up an introduction with the author. What was I looking for? I honestly hadn’t thought much about where that initial phone call with Amy might lead. But I felt at home here, among people who understood what I had been through and wanted to see me grow from my experience.
I’m not sure what I had been expecting to find at this meeting, but I had initially thought it might look more like a support group. Looking around the room, I could tell that this was no support group. This organization’s leaders didn’t just want to acknowledge my loss, they wanted to do something about it. They wanted my husband’s legacy to live on in generations to come. And they were asking me to help lead that effort. It was a humbling responsibility.
“Wh-what am I looking for?” I stuttered. “Um, anything really. I’m not much of a speaker, so not that. But anything else. I’d love to help with whatever you guys need help with.”
Several months later, I was volunteering weekly with the Travis Manion Foundation. I did odd jobs around the San Diego office, inputting Excel spreadsheets and organizing office materials. It wasn’t t
he traditional way that they liked to activate the Gold Star family members with whom they worked, and it wasn’t terribly glamorous, but they met me where I was. I was providing value in a way that felt right to me, and I was learning that I was not alone. I was happy to spend time doing something outside of myself and passing a few hours among people whom I genuinely liked and respected.
When a full-time staff position opened up a few months later, I jumped at the opportunity to interview for the job. I’d been trying to get out of retail for years, and I felt like this nonprofit was going to be my ticket to a purpose-filled career and a whole new life for myself. I’ll never forget sitting across the table from the West Coast director of the Travis Manion Foundation. I had gone through the interview process and was about to be offered a job that would change my life forever. As he offered me the job, I felt butterflies in my stomach.
“As for a start date,” he said as he thumbed through a calendar, “how soon can you begin?”
I wish I could begin yesterday, I thought to myself. “I can give notice to my current job today, and am happy to begin as soon as you’ll have me.”
“Okay, then. Let’s do two weeks from today. That would be Monday, November 9. How does that sound?”
11/09/15. My first day of a new career would also mark the five-year anniversary of the day I received the knock at the door. It felt too perfect. I took a deep breath and, silently, thanked Rob. Somehow I knew he was at the center of this new chapter. He was always looking out for me.
“It sounds great,” I replied as I shook his hand. “I’m looking forward to it.”
I left the office that day knowing my life was about to take a substantial turn for the better. As I drove home, I thought about how far I’d come in the last half decade. It was almost hard to believe there had been a time when all I wanted was for time to run out as quickly as possible. Now I was actually looking forward to what life had in store for me. The previous five years had turned my life upside down. So much had changed, including myself. I had a way to go, but I had learned so many powerful lessons along the way.