I remember that day like it was yesterday. Yes, I forget what happened last week, but that chance meeting over 20 years ago in a library with a red-headed girl with a huge orange purse, I remember that well. That was my once-in-a-lifetime friend I was destined to meet. My Di.
Di I loved
you even before I met you in that abnormal psych class on that brisk fall
afternoon in the 90’s. With your bright orange purse, your
persistent character and your wide smile that mimicked your intense
soul. You sought me out, I floundered among the students and you put
me at ease that day and every day after that. People are placed in
our life’s trajectory that we are meant to know, meant to be with, meant to
laugh with and meant to love for more than a lifetime. Your
brilliant red hair and your intriguing consensus on the meaning of everything
brought me into your space and you shared vehemently your life, your family’s
life and your soul with me at every juncture in the road. I will be
forever grateful for newfound introductions, special talks, life lessons,
acceptance of my soul mate, the love of adventure and your calming sense of
being a human. And of course, your hugs. I miss those so
much.
I’ve been
waiting a long time for a sign, my dear. That little pinch to let me
know that you are watching over me and us and them. We talked about
that in your last days, we laughed about it in your last days. I
sent kisses and love and good karma and vibes to you even from the outside of
those cement walls of that place you spent your last days in. I made
it part of my daily ritual to drive past and send you my love, my peace and my
reverence in any way that I could. Even though we all know it didn’t
work out the way that we wanted it to and at times my feeling of the energy
that we tried to surround you with that day was all for nothing. But
I know better. I know better, now. It was for you, but
being selfish human beings, it was all for us and that is the way that you
would have wished it would be, so we wished that too for you and we produced it
for you and we were so very proud of you staying tough against that ugly green
cancer monster that eventually gobbled you up. But we learned well
and good and heartily from the blank canvas that you left us to continue our
journey on. You had already painted all that you were going to paint
and you had readied us for a world without you.
I’ve still
not deleted Di’s phone number from my home phone and I still have her email
contact in my email along with saved emails. I have need to keep my
connection “open” with Di, a desire to be there but I know that it’s just a
form of the ongoing grieving process and by keeping that connection available,
I know that I share this as a commonality with others who have had great loss
in their lives.
I only wish I
could have her voice saved, recorded, frozen in time. Does that
sound morbid? Does that sound unnerving? I would really give so very
much to hear that boisterous red-headed rolling rambunctious round of
laughter….and to hear it at the very thought of it, with a recording would be
like she was still here. If only I would have recorded her the day that she
sang for me from her hospital bed. She sang like an angel and I was
awestruck watching and listening to her.
I know you’ve
probably been busy with chatting, educating and laughing in that gleeful
contagious Di way. I look to the sky, the stars, the wonders of the
world and know that you are always in our heart, soul, mind and
thoughts. Your little sprinkles of love and laughter have survived
and are always working in the background and sometimes in the foreground of our
lives. I know that your physical presence is gone but you have left
an everlasting seed that continues to flourish and grow and impact the lives of
so many every single day.
I think that
some people who knew me before we lost Di are still today a bit dumbfounded
that I “still” grieve from her loss. Loss is a unique journey but
one that takes us from one realm and catapults us to another realm where the
things that we do each day are magnified and hold real and true and vivacious
memories. Di you were magnanimous and we carry that with
us each and every day.
What EE
Cummings wrote is so very true, Di:
"Here is
the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree
called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide and this is
the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart. I carry your heart; I
carry it in my heart."
I will forever carry your heart in my heart, my dearest Di.
Peace.
Love.
Hugs.
Realization.
Onward and Upward.
Creating, Keeping and Loving Memories…
Cath
