Forever Memories of Di: 11/1/19

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."