The Best Friend of My Dreams Who Got Away

I met Nicole, the most treasured friend I have ever had in my life, at the Ronald McDonald House in Rochester, Minnesota while Nicole and I were admitted at the Mayo Clinic during the cold winter of February 2013. During those cold days she warmed my heart instantly when she approached me after our dinner had finished at the Ronald McDonald House. She broke the ice by saying “Hey, you just seem very nice and normal compared to a few here, and I’d like to get to know you.” I got that feeling you get when you feel like you’ve known that person forever instantaneously. Nicole asked me, “Do you know what POTS is?” which was her diagnosis, and for some reason, my mind went to pots and pans. Later that night when we went to our respective rooms with our parents and family, we continued to chat over text about our chronic health problems and how we dealt with them. I turned 18 during the 2 weeks our times overlapped at the Mayo Clinic; so, we were just 17 to 18-year-old teenagers who immediately had a crush on each other. We formed such a strong bond as best friends throughout our experience at Mayo’s that carried over into a complicated but beautiful friendship. Throughout the years, we did keep in touch and converse about our health battles and how we dreamed to overcome them.

Nicole and I certainly bonded over doing Physical/Occupational Therapy during our time at the Pain Rehabilitation Center (PRC) at the Mayo Clinic while also hanging out with our other friends there, which we called our “PRC Family”. Everyone there was around the same age (16-20 years old), so we understood one another very deeply, along with the wonderful parents of everyone who were on the journey there with us. Nicole and I bonded stronger than any other person there, not only because of the crush we had on each other, but we genuinely felt like our souls just knew what the other was feeling at any given moment. Nicole and I knew when to give each other a hug or an embrace. We knew when to talk to each other if we needed it, or simply stop talking when we didn’t feel like it anymore. We also understood each other’s sense of humor.

Great examples of our bond there was when I asked her how she was doing when she was at the ER during Super Bowl Sunday and said “Your text brought such a big smile to my face, and you were awesome at volleyball during physical therapy.” What really touched me was when she said “I rejected everyone else’s offer to get a ride to the YMCA because I wanted to ride there with you.” An example of understanding our sense of humor was when everyone was talking at the same time and I put out a loud “shhh!” and she looked at me with that sweet smirk on her face because she genuinely knew how much noise like that bothered me when we were in our groups. What really sums up Nicole and I’s experience at the Mayo Clinic is just the shear genuine understanding we had of one another through shared experiences of having to battle our mental and physical demons that our chronic health problems caused us for so many years, and the deep feelings of infatuation we developed over the very brief amount of 2 weeks. It felt like I knew her for 2 years already.

Ever since the day Nicole and I separated ways to go back home after the 2 weeks and “graduate” from the rehab program at the Mayo Clinic, I could not stop thinking about the last night and day we spent together. She graduated first because she had arrived a week earlier, so I missed her terribly my last week at the program. Well, the night before Valentine’s Day, I fittingly gave her a heart necklace that had her name on it. A week before, Nicole was so excited when I told her I was going to surprise her with a gift, she said, “Can you please tell me now!?” I’m too excited now for you to keep me waiting!” On the night of Valentine’s Day, I was planning on putting the necklace on her with her back to me so that she would be extra surprised, but I became way too nervous and finally decided to put the necklace in her mailbox at the Ronald McDonald House so that she could open it the next morning. The one thing I will ALWAYS remember is the way we said goodbye on Valentine’s Day at the Mayo Clinic. We embraced with a long hug in the gym where we all gathered to say goodbye to her, telling each other “we absolutely need to see each other again outside this program!”and then we held hands for about 10 seconds before she said “bye, I’ll text you soon” We just held on to each other’s finger-tips while we went back to the seats in the gym we were assigned to.

It seemed like something from a fairy tale to me. All the thoughts of the 2 weeks we spent together, especially the night and day before she left to go back to Kansas. She meant so much to me because during a time I was dealing with the initial shock of having to deal with an illness, she was there to fully support me, understand me, and distract me from thinking so negatively about my condition. Nicole always consumed my thoughts while we texted and had video calls with one another. While we were both at home, we expressed our romantic feelings to each other and even thought we might go into a long-distanced relationship. I was honestly willing to go the long haul with her. That’s how extremely strong I felt about her. But I became too invested way too early in our relationship and was very much infatuated and obsessed with her to the point where it became too much for her to handle, so we gradually lost contact because of our teenage impulsiveness, and did not talk for 5 years.

When Nicole did reach out to me again, she told me that she felt way too strong for me to the point where it scared her away. So, an important lesson I learned with this experience with Nicole is that no matter how strongly you feel about a person, you approach that relationship cautiously and as modestly as you possibly can. We were both on an emotional escalator, which we rode on together until I went through the roof and left her behind wondering what was going on. But the lesson was learned and Nicole and I understood our lessons of the past and restarted our friendship as strong as it ever was in 2018.

When Nicole reached out to me in 2018, she had told me she was engaged to the man of her dreams. It was definitely a bittersweet moment for me because I still had feelings for her, but because of the tremendous amount of respect I had for her and her own relationship, I focused all in on our friendship to the point where I realized that this is how we are meant to be. Nicole literally called me “one of the best friends I’ve ever had” after we continued to support each other through so many mental and physical challenges through 2018-2020. Nicole was especially struggling with her own chronic health issues; going to the ER multiple times because her pain and symptoms were getting worse as every month went by.

I texted her back in May of 2020 while she was having a breakdown. We decided to video call each other and we managed to calm her down and actually see each other’s faces for the first time in 7 years…we really loved that moment because that’s when we genuinely made peace for all that happened when we were teenagers and our sudden departure. What really made that FaceTime call so important is that we made peace; she went through the letters we wrote each other at the Mayo Clinic while jokingly saying, “You really had bad handwriting” because of the extreme cursive I wrote them in, and she actually still had and showed me the heart necklace I had bought for her on Valentine’s Day 7 years ago!

The reason why the FaceTime we had the May of 2020 was so important is because it was the very last time I saw her on this Earth. My dearest friend passed on August 14th, 2020 the weekend right before I started my college career. The only regret I have is that we never got to see each other in-person ever again after the most emotional goodbye I experienced on our last day together at the Mayo Clinic. Starting college after a 6-year hiatus from school because of my own chronic health issues was the best distraction to ever happen because I would honestly have gone crazy after not being forced to stay busy and keep my mind off of the thought that she was no longer in this world. School was the best therapy for me after Nicole's passing; specifically, an essay that I wrote about her is the best way I got some of the emotions and pain I had in my heart at that moment off my chest.

I wanted to write this memoir so that I could vent about such cherished memories with my best friend so that I will be able to lift some of the weight that’s been on my heart and has been healing from such a fresh and deep wound. Sometimes I wish I had been writing about something different and not about something so deep and bittersweet, but again, using this memoir in order to write about Nicole is a small sign to me that she wants to give me an outlet to grieve about her in a positive way.

Nicole and I wanted to achieve our dreams of overcoming our chronic health problems together, so it’s extremely unfortunate that one of us had to die at such a young age for our dream to be vanquished. We wanted to see each other in-person again, embrace each other just like we did at the end of our time together at the Mayo Clinic, and continue to express how much her existence and friendship meant so heavily to me. I sometimes want God to take me as well to be to be with her, but that would be extremely selfish of me because of my family and loved ones I’ll be leaving behind along with a boat load of dreams; even Nicole wouldn’t be pleased if my life was cut short. She will be one of my biggest inspirations to overcome my chronic health problems, really start to thrive in the real world, and live my dreams until the day I become old and gray and completely exhausted of my fulfilled life.

Today, I am hungry as ever to chase my dreams for the sake of Nicole, all the other loved ones I’ve lost, and for all the loved ones who continue to cheer me on to greater heights in this world. I will “Keep On Keeping On Forever” just like Nicole and I agreed on, except that she will be in my heart for the rest of my life as I continue to keep on keeping on and live out my end of our dream.