Caterwauling

I saw that Sia’s former employer established a scholarship fund in her name.

It makes sense. She gave everything to them. It’s good that they can help her memory live on. It was the right thing to do. It’s more than most would do.

But …

A college scholarship? In the era of Bernie Sanders and “free college for everyone except you assholes still drowning in student debt 25 years after you graduated because you were unfortunate enough to borrow at a 10% interest rate”?

Also, it’s to sponsor aspiring writers. Because that’s what she wanted to be, they say.

Look.

I say this with love because that’s all I have in my heart for our girl and anyone else who loved her.

She and I both knew you can’t be a writer anymore. Everyone’s a writer now. Even with lousy grammar, poor sentence structure and this b.s. called FK scores that makes you dumb everything down so even a Trump voter can comprehend it.

Those of us who were classically trained have had to find niches. Health. Finance. Sports. Policy. You can write … but you’ll probably be subbing in for people who have the knowledge who can’t hold a conversation with a normal person without you as their translator.

You know how to honor her?

1. Raise a bunch of money and donate it to the people of Greece. The ones who are eating out of dumpsters because there are no jobs.

2. Help the pensioners whose whole families have moved back into their basements. Who now all have to make do with one meal a day because they suddenly have seven more mouths to feed.

3. Send a bunch of people into the Peace Corps and keep the volunteerism spirit alive. Have them build a village and name it after her.

She was going to join the Peace Corps, for those of you who didn’t know. I can’t remember the timing — I’m pretty sure it was after I was tossed from that last company and she was saddled with my job for her pay.

It was a total fluke that the job she DID take (and stay at for the next five years) opened up when it did.

She wasn’t going to apply because none of us are allowed to apply at competitors. I mean we are but we catch hell for it and who wants to jeopardize what you DO have in favor of something you might not get?

No wonder everyone’s a walking anxiety attack, when you put it that way.

Anyway. You want to honor that beautiful girl, you make the world a better place. We don’t need more writers. (Wait, yes, yes we do. < / weary editor here > )

We need more Sias. That’s what we need. Full of love and hope and deep thoughts and compassion for our fellow man.

Anyway.

Maybe, with that, I’m starting to see how I can best memorialize her.

Dear S.,

You’ve been gone a week today. I finally slept for the first night. Not for lack of being exhausted. But, you know. The neighbor finally needed to rest his evil head. 

That’s what’s in my head today. The absolute pieces of shit who live on while people like you die too young. Like the entire population of Braddock Beach save for mom, me and my new friend T. 

I think about how we both liked the same people and shared a violent distrust of certain others. It sucks losing you because you were one of the greats. The kind of people you have to import to Florida. One of the ones who leaves (I’m just referring to your return to Baltimore, just like Lady L did before you and T will soon do) because it’s just too weird here. And expensive. But mostly weird. And lacking in opportunity. 

Funny how most people aspire to move to a big city. We lived in big cities. Many of them. And we gravitated here. But the good ones don’t seem to stay. 

Speaking of, this summer it’s five years since Chip died. Managing editors are a near-extinct species. I need a job or at least a title change. Did I mention how impressed I was when you stood up and got the title and pay you deserved? My heroine. Honestly. 

Chip was another one who was fine and working one moment and was suddenly gone the next. 

I don’t think anyone outside our roles understands how much weight we carry. Including on our minds and hearts. If you think enough, the doing looks easier than it really is. 

Say hi to Chip when you see him. Share a cigar and laugh at my yam fits. 

In the friend circle, we are stunned that you had a “cardiac event” at age 31. Like maybe it was something else. 

But the pain in my heart when I think of you hurting … And, now that you’ve seen my real life from your new view, all the other things that destroy me from within and cause mounting anxiety … Makes your heart attack make sense. 

The difference is that you still went out and lived when you could. Not me. I live with the most anxious person on the planet and you know the rest. 

I think it’s time to do a will. I’ve been thinking about it for a few weeks. 

Maybe you know this where you are now — I was going to will my boxes of writings and my social media accounts to you. 

Can’t imagine there’s anyone else who would have had a modicum of interest in that stuff. Now I have no clue what to do with it all. I guess when there’s no one left to pay for my storage units, my life will all go in the trash literally as well as existentially. Maybe that’s not a terrible outcome.

Wish I had something of yours. I was thinking how I loved two of your necklaces. Christina and your mom should have those. Then I thought — ha — I should get your wine opener. 

Then I remembered, I gave you mine when you moved in with Diana. So I guess it’s only fitting that it keeps on traveling. 

Well sister, speaking of traveling, I imagine you’d rather be watching the Olympics than listening to me. Fly back to Rio safely. I know you are looking most forward to the soccer. Enjoy every last second of it!

Miss you, love. 

Goddess

Dearest S.,

I learned a new word today. Usually it would be you to teach me these things. And maybe you already know this Swedish saying. But lagom is something we never found.

Loosely (and I mean very loosely) translated, it means balance. Of having “just enough but not too much” of something.

Like, having just enough wine to dull the ache of another 16-hour workday. But not so much that we don’t appreciate all the flavors that went into that glass of joy. Or traveling just enough to satiate that wanderlust, but not so much that we miss home too much. To put it in our terms.

I think of how you lost your life as you were literally standing in line to board a plane back home from a foreign city you’d never visited before.

If what they tell me is true (and it’s amazing what we tell ourselves when we are grieving), you were gone pretty quickly.

If there was a way that you (or anyone, really) was “meant” to go — honey, you did it. You never wanted to go home. You enjoyed that last trip up to the last-possible second that it lasted. Everyone should go out that way.

Lagom, as I read it, referred back to the Vikings passing their booze around the campfire. They each took a draught — just enough — and left plenty for their pals.

Yes, socialist shit. lol. I swear I just heard you say that.

Now, I’m not saying that happiness is limited in this world. (Although it feels like there really isn’t enough to go around.)

But I think you took your share of happiness and pain. You had enough of both.

I wonder whether it’s the imbalance that keeps the rest of us alive. Until enough really is enough.

Speaking of enough, perhaps I have kept you here long enough with my letters to you. I do plan to type to you privately, about things I so desperately wish I could get your opinion on.

Or maybe I won’t. Maybe you had enough of all this and anything more would be too much.

That doesn’t mean I will forget you. It just means that Paris and Athens are high atop my must-do list now. I need to see the things firsthand that shaped you. You’ll still be my guide, I know it.

And, as always, I am only too happy to follow you wherever you want to take me next.

Love you bunches,
Goddess

Dear S.,

Your old boss (the good one. Well, I was pretty OK too, but you know who I mean) has written many a scathing memo about people who start off their stories with song lyrics.

Don’t tell bad stories, he writes. Tell interesting ones. Nobody knows your music, either. Get over yourself.

I will politely refrain from listing all the songs I’ve been listening to. (Although, “Seasons in the Sun.” You gotta admit the line about “too much wine and too much song” was totally us, right?)

I do have another musical interlude, though. This time, it was “your” song — or, at least, one of the ones I associate with you.

I got into the car late today. Turned on The Gater, as one does when one cannot stand another political discussion on NPR. And there was “Simple Man,” in its entirety. (My little Skynyrd fan …)

You and one of our editors bonded over that song. I bet he’s somewhere hearing it too and thinking of you. (Update: I had to go and crush his soul and be the one to tell him about you. He’s so sad now, too.)

Today is a better day for me, I guess, overall. I haven’t taken off my sunglasses since Sunday. My hair hasn’t seen the outside of a slew of colorful headwraps ever since, either. I keep forgetting to reply to people but you know what? When I do, they are gracious and kind and happy to hear back eventually.

There is good in this world. We found a whole lot of it in our circle. I forgot about that.

Milton saw me sitting outside looking sad. You know him — the sweet guy who works on cars next door to our work building. He offered to buy me a cold drink. Love that guy. I almost told him about you. But I didn’t want to shatter another smile today.

I don’t remember much these days (how many times did I have to walk back to my car this morning for my laptop and purse?). But I remember the right things that (sigh of relief) really weren’t long-forgotten.

It’s not just that I miss you — I have missed you for a long time now. It’s just a whole lot more palpable when the possibilities run out.

Thank you for sending me your song.

Sending hugs to your heaven,
Goddess

Dearest S.,

I just saw that Gandhi quote and boy, guess who came to mind?

Our old friend called me last night. A few did, actually. But you know who I mean. She was lucky enough to see you just a week ago.

She is helping me to piece together the details of your last moments here. It still doesn’t make any sense to us. But, you know. I’d rather have envisioned you having a “burger garden” at the Brass Ring or a plate of pasta at Maggiano’s or TWO PLATTERS OF BRIE AND FRUIT (omg we really ate that in one sitting!) at DaDa.

Anyway. Everyone here is evaluating/reevaluating everything right now. Seems everyone is taking days off this week and month. And yet here I am with tears in my eyes, working through the pain.

It both hurts and comforts me that it’s probably the most-appropriate way to honor you.

And while I could bash this earth’s head in if it ever took human form for taking you (and taking you the way it did), it’s bringing the old gang back together. In a surreal, kind of fucked-up way. But, you know. Does anything ever happen in a way that’s NOT messy and ridiculous?

We’d laugh about it if you were here. You probably are pondering the irony wherever you are. Which, I imagine, is running your crepe shop on the Mediterranean and teaching Greek and French to grateful tourists. In the same loving way you taught our friend’s son to read.

You still amaze me, the more I learn about you.

I suspect that trend will only continue.

Love you,
Goddess

Dear S.,

You reached out to me about a job opening on Aug. 2, 2010. 

I was over the moon and fully intent on hiring you on the spot. No contest. None whatsoever. 

Thank you for coming back into my life when you did … 

Although who could resist this kind of job post, really? I knew we were going to be FAST friends right then. 

I know it ended in disaster for both of us. But it brought you to me and to all our friends who love and miss you very much. 

Hugs, 

Goddess

Dear S.,

I never hated “If I Die Young” so much until today. My mom was playing the song. For you, of course for you.

I wouldn’t say I’m any more coherent today. But I did reach out to some people about you. Everyone is hurting right now. I think they figured I’m pretty inconsolable.

Some others worry that their grief is miniscule in comparison to what mine must be, so they were keeping it to themselves.

A couple of your old colleagues reached out to me to see if I’d be up for a drink and some reminiscing. I don’t even know one of these people, but if I get a funny Sia story, I’m sold. Bloody Marys by the beach are on tap very soon. Wish so very much that I were meeting you there instead.

I got to talking with one of our girls. I didn’t say it to her but I remembered my life plan to retire from the biz at 46. I came up with that with you. When we talked about it, I was going to give it five more years and go park my pudgy pork roast ass in Paris. For a season if not for good.

Our friend says I still have time. I say I need to keep playing the lottery. (And I do …)

I think what makes you such a loss, other than your all-around amazingness, is that you did everything you set out to do. Moved to a foreign country. Put yourself through school. Got your dream job and quit after it was a nightmare. Came to Florida because I asked you to. Worked your tail off and made everyone fall in love with you. And finally, finally, got back to the country you love so much.

Really, if there’s any comfort to be found here, it’s that you ROCKED THIS LIFE you had. And you left the world a better place.

And the loss here is that you had SO MUCH MORE GOOD to share with this world.

Mom calls it the “season of Sweet Sia.” It’s all we had you for. It wasn’t enough — it’s never enough — but it was vibrant and bright and colorful and warm and absolutely wonderful while it lasted.

Missing you more each moment you’re gone,
Goddess

Dearest S.,

I’ve never had someone die and it made me wish with all my might that I could trade places with them.

But there isn’t enough wine in Lodi to take away an ounce of this pain. And all I can think is, you should be here. And I would give anything for you to have more time in your too-short life.

Mom said she remembers you and me sitting on my L-shaped balcony on the Intracoastal, talking about things that were so over her head. Finance, politics, the characters in our too-crazy-to-be-fiction world, and all our theories on their behavior and what motivated them. 

She said she was in awe of us — we were so smart, so cultured, so worldly to her. You especially. You saw more of the world than I have. And you promised to show it to me. In fact, you couldn’t wait to be my tour guide. Paris first. Then … everything and anything. And finally, we’d run a crepe shop on the Mediterranean. We would be free.

I know the moment you died. I knew something was wrong. Mom and I were on a road in the left (fast — hahaha) lane. I had to come to a screeching halt behind some twit who was going 25 mph. A car — a crimson Nissan Altima — almost wiped us out — he came upon us going at least 70.

I swerved left. Nearly killed us all. But that car swerved right. And the cauliflower heads going 25 mph in a 50 in the left lane never noticed.

Mom and I sat there in that lane for a fraction of a second. I thanked Jesus a hundred times. God knows Mom has enough problems without THAT.

But I knew something was wrong in the world right then. I wasn’t sure why the universe spared us. But I was grateful. Yet I wondered … who wasn’t so lucky?

Had I known it was at your expense (and I know it wasn’t, but bear with me. This grief is destroying me), I don’t know that I wouldn’t have told God to take me instead. You’re so young. So much to offer. So … everything that is good about this world.

Everyone called me this weekend and today. I heard from Vitamin D., from our hero P., from our far-away friend S. … and so on. (And you know how much I hate the phone …)

None of us can believe you’re gone.

And that everyone thought of me … I am humbled that they associate me with your friendship.

I thanked them all for reaching out. For loving and caring about me. For loving YOU and wanting to connect with the person they associate most with you.

I’m not certain if you recognize the Jonny Van Zant song (“Brickyard Road”) I quoted in the title. I heard it in high school and have loved it for as long as you’ve been alive. But you loved you some Skynyrd, so maybe you heard Little Brother’s song somewhere along the line.

Facebook keeps showing me our memories. So few photos of us. But so many photos of good food, good drinks and many, many late nights spent in parking lots — thinking of ANOTHER thing to talk about. And ANOTHER.

Man, you and I would try to wrap up early to go back to work (or get up early for it — or both). And suddenly 8:30 p.m. became 2-ish a.m. and we were by ourselves under a streetlight somewhere … gabbing the night away.

I can’t help feeling like I failed you somehow. That you aspired to my stupid work ethic and surpassed it as only you could. That we kept the rest of the world at arm’s length. And then, eventually, we did the same to each other.

And if I can’t trade places with you, in a way I feel like the only right thing to do would be to join you.

I’m not going to. Not that I know of, anyway. God only takes the good ones. You never had an unkind word to say about anyone. You spoke your truth clearly and confidently. Your employer loved you and so did everyone else you ever met.

But as I read the tributes on your Faceypages wall, I see colleagues upon colleagues. You were great to work with. You were a great leader and team player. You worked hard and made everyone feel important. ALL WORK.

I feel like I was partly responsible for that.

And I also feel honored …

That you let me get close.

That you let me know the real you.

That you loved me so damn much … and let me love you right on back.

Back before gay marriage was a thing, you joked that we were soulmates. Too bad we can’t get married, Goddess, you’d say. We are more alike than any man we’d ever met. Shame we can’t give up on sex or else this would be the perfect arrangement!

We would laugh. We always figured we’d be friends. We said men would be secondary to our friendship. Not that we wanted it that way — we just figured that’s how it would unfold.

And in the past year or so, even though we weren’t as close as we were when you lived in Florida — I could still reach out and THERE YOU WERE. Every time.

Anyway. I had so much to share with you. So many things I knew you would relate to. But we hid behind our professionalism. Smiled over the crazy things. Chose not to bond — preferring to keep secrets in our respective “families.” Families — that we love very much — built independently of each other.

And here we are. What was truly the greatest kind of friendship, stopped in its tracks.

And for what it’s worth, those things you did say a couple years ago — as bluntly as possible to me — were 100% correct. Rather, they were prescient rather than true at that point. But, you know. I had nothing to lose after it was out in the universe.

(You were right. He wasn’t worth it.)

OK I am guessing the wine is kicking in, thank you Lodi Estates. Which you would love. We always enjoyed the pursuit of amazing Bloody Marys, pinot noirs and rum drinks.

I told everone who called to have a Bloody or a good red wine tonight. And to “Cheers” to our girl.

We just all wish you could clink those glasses right on back.

Love you so much, I can’t even breathe. And not sure I even want to anymore …

Love always,
Goddess

Dearest Sia,

I know you’re going through your life review right now and don’t have time for the likes of me. Yet I feel you everywhere around me. I hope I am not too bold as to assume I’ve gotten a pretty kickass guardian angel. Because you can expect me to be talking to you a whole lot more than I did before this weekend.

I shouldn’t have come into work today. I try not to blog from here but I hope they will understand today. I was actually fine till someone said your name out loud. I was praying he wouldn’t. Praying. Praying like I should have when you were fighting for your life. Which I didn’t because you’re so tough. I never thought you wouldn’t make it.

The boys are used to hearing me laughing in my corner. Today they hear sobs. They are staying away now. I am grateful for that.

You will find this funny. When your name came up this morning, my friend thought he was talking about the singer. She pinged me to say no, she’s not dead. It’s an internet hoax. I Googled it.

At first I was stunned. Like, WTF is going on right this minute? Are you people all trying to make me insane?

And then I laughed. My first laugh since …

I explained we were talking about the lovely lady in my Faceypages profile photo. Yes, that girl. The one so young and full of life with the fire in her eyes. That one that should be here right now.

Mom misses you, too, Sia. When I told her the news, she crumbled. You were hers, too. She loved you so, so, so much. We are so sorry that we didn’t connect more, invite you over more. You never wanted to intrude. You knew how sick she was and how hard it was for her to be “on” for company. But you were family. You would bring the Chianti, mom would make the lasagna and I would just enjoy you both.

I can’t believe this is real.

Fly high, little lady. Don’t hang around me too long. You were never meant to be trapped in a body. You wanted to see the world, and you saw your fair share in your three decades on this blue marble. Now you can see it all.

I hope you are waiting for me so you can show me everything when it’s my time to join you.

Love you so very much,
The one you always called Goddess

If anyone has the nerve to look at my sad eyes and ask if my best friend died today, my answer will be …

Yes. Yes she did. 

Best friend I ever had. We both worked too much and too long and too hard to see each other enough. 

And here we are today, out of chances to fix that.  

Goddamn it, world. 

Sia and Brownie in my old backyard