TW: Death, loss, grief, young death.
I start having nightmares this time of year. Bad ones. I usually stop sleeping.
This one's deeply personal, no advice contained within, just trauma.
Shared in hopes of healing part of myself, and in adoring memory of my first friend.
As always, the music surrounds the post:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIF2PwNBE88lU9PaSB7ELvG62d46S2OTZ
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Roxy,
It's not fair that you had to go.
I can still smell the air in the craft store I was cashiering at the day your mom came through my line. It smelled like newly placed grapevine wreaths, damaged chocolate bunnies, and fresh morning air that was about to get knocked out of my lungs.
I was excited to see her, I rang her up as fast as I could and asked how you were doing, said I'd missed you, asked for your number.
She wouldn't look up all the way to meet my gaze, her face was swollen and red. She asked for a scrap of receipt paper and wrote her number down on it. She said, "Roxanna isn't doing so well, call me after work".
So I did.
I had not seen your mom in 5 years. I saw you last, in person, as you were, at your 16th birthday party where you got Scooby Doo car accessories, but no car. I guess you took a different path after that. It hurt, and I missed you, but as I've grown to understand addiction, I know you didn't do it to hurt me, or anyone else.
Your mom said you were in recovery when it happened. We still don't know what "it" was.
You were in a coma. And I thought deep in my heart that if I stayed by you as much as I could that you would wake up.
Your labs were free of any illegal substance.
You had a cold, or sinus infection. You took Benadryl before bed, and that's the last time you were awake. Anoxic/hypoxic encephalopathy, etiology undetermined. Manner of death, unknown.
You were 21.
I still wont take or allow my children to take Benadryl.
1999
I can't remember if you were on tower 11 or 12. I know it was close to the top of the building. I remember wondering as that slow-motion elevator ride began, if it was because you were needing to be closer to the heavens.
I still have the picture of me sitting with you on your hospital bed before they transferred you to hospice. I see now, as I saw then, all the warmth and color in your face while the doctor reviewed your most recent brain scans with your mother in the room. I still remember you opening your eyes and looking around, squeezing my hand, and how the attending told me that it was involuntary movement, and how I couldn't and wouldn't believe that. How I still have my doubts.
I will always believe you knew more than the science gave your brain credit for.
You would sob uncontrollably at random and then become calm. You looked scared. Maybe I was scared, and that's what I saw reflected in you.
I brought you flowers from work. I don't know if you ever really saw them, but they were there, on your shelf.
I helped move your things the day you were transferred.
I knew two mutual friends of ours. I told them they should come say goodbye but they never came.
It was me, and your parents, for two weeks.
We gave you your favorite soda, Dr Pepper on a Toothette in your sunlit hospice room where they put you on a morphine drip.
We brushed your hair and painted your nails your favorite color.
And we watched the morphine drip.
I got off work and called your mom headed west bound on highway 30 towards your hospice from my cell phone on April 16.
"You're too late, she's gone."
I drove there anyway, and gave you a kiss on your cheek.
That night I drank Shiner Bock in an apartment parking lot and toasted your memory with a ghost of future-past, who didn't bother showing up to your funeral.
I did.
I went back, once, in 2008. I brought you roses and ate sunflower seeds and talked to you about everything you'd missed, including the pregnancy I'd lose within a week of the visit to you.
Your absence still leaves an ache in my heart that I recognize as the place you hold, always. It is dull and it is sharp at the same time. It still takes my breath away and cinches my heart. It is masked until I think of you. When Easter decorations start appearing, the pain always comes back.
You were my first friend, and my best friend by far in middle school. The first person that I felt understood- you were that first deep connection with another person. You had a dark sense of humor, but were silly too. You were way too cool for me, but were fiercely loyal and protective of me anyway. You loved the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Marilyn Manson. Your step dad would sing a Rolling Stones song at me every time I called, but finally stopped doing that when I sang back "Roxanne". You thought it was funny, but he did not. We would go out to eat with our parents and sit at our own table like we were grown. We spent so much time together both our moms would talk about just starting a custody agreement where we'd spend 2 weeks at each house every month to cut down on driving.
We listened to music and talked about everything under those glow in the dark stars on your ceiling every weekend. Sometimes we would dance outside under the real stars, too.
If I close my eyes and concentrate really hard, I can still hear your voice and your laugh. I wouldn't be who I am without my time with you.
I hope you found peace.
Love you always.