Monday Missives

My sister called earlier with bad news. A girl I've known since we were 15 and 16 died. She had cancer at one time and did chemo. but,we don't know if that's what killed her.

She will always evoke strange and funny memories. She went out with one of my friends when we were teenagers. He wanted me to go out with her when they were done with each other. I think He loved her but wouldn't say it and wanted her to be with someone decent.

We sat in the same chair the night we met and watched the fireplace. She was a beauty.

She fell asleep in my lap with her head on my shoulder. I watched the fire for at least two hours while she slept before I drifted off

For the next 25 or so years our paths crossed continually. She married an old friend who was actually related by marriage to me. We had a lot of friends in common. I worked with some of her family.

The years over all would be generally good to me- for her, each meeting would be marked by my noting her apparent decline. I used to think I might have been reading too much into her reaction but I always thought she wondered "What if?" about me. More than one person who knew her has told me in the years since this was actually what she had been thinking.

Her life was so hard in the ways people sometimes just don't deserve. It's probably this that could make me feel a little guilty as well as flattered after all those years when people would say "She asks about you every time I see her" etc.

The guy who introduced us was killed only 6-8 years later. Until the day he died he ragged on me for not seeing more of her when I had the chance. He said, "Man she's hot and cool- you are a dumb butt." Again- he loved her although I never heard him say it. I saw it in his eyes though, when we saw her with some older scumbag biker years later. He looked like he'd been physically kicked in the stomach.

I knew then he just wanted her to be loved and happy.

I couldn't prove she was ever either.

She was 44.