A miracle.
Je vous présente mes excuses…
That’s a fancy French way of saying, “Sorry ‘bout that.” By that, I mean I didn’t just forget about Monday’s installment or let it go by the wayside. I had French things ready for you but, in the end, I couldn’t write about them. I wrote something else. In a grief stupor. I haven’t had time or presence of mind to edit it very much, so there might be typos or repetitions, etc. I hope you read it anyway.
I thought her name was Shanna…
…like rhymes with banana, and Anna, the person who started this whole thing. This was back when I believed in Anna March. Anna was a writer who seemed to be pretty well-connected and that was cool and all, but more importantly, she was my friend. Anna knew about books, so when she recommended them on Facebook, I promptly checked them out from the library or bought them outright.
I read Oh! You Pretty Things by Shanna Mahin and loved it even though I don’t really do much grown-up fiction anymore. When I was done, I re-read the first half trying to figure out why it was so good. The characters were great and knowable, complicated and problematic but so the kind of people I’d want to hang with—probably because I grew up mostly in the Ozarks or down red dirt roads in Georgia and the whole book happens in LA. The language was stunning, spilling with dark humor and honesty. But it was the use of the historical present that made the whole cocktail so yummy.
I had been working on a re-write of the memoir I’ve been writing since 2003 (yes, I’ve been writing HOW I LEARNED FRENCH since I was pregnant with Ryan) but couldn’t figure out why it lacked luster until I read Oh! You Pretty Things. I went back and revised my first chapter, changing everything into the historical present. Reading it aloud, I got the zing in my belly that tells me I’m getting close to something real.
Anna March wrote me after four months of ghosting to ask if I was going to be at AWP (a huge writer’s conference that moves around the country). I lived just outside Baltimore and the conference was in D.C. that year. It would be my first time. Everyone gushed about how awesome but also overwhelming it could be—with a kazillion panels to choose from every time slot, off-site readings, poetry slams, parties and receptions with famous people. I responded yes, glad she had finally written me back and hoping the next thing she would say was that she’d wire me the $1K she owed me (she did). She responded by inviting me to a reception at a soul food place. I went and it was cool but there were a lot of people I didn’t know. I drank the free booze and talked to a couple of people but was relieved when Anna asked if I wanted to slip out with a few people for a smoke.
There was my friend Sarah, me, Anna March, maybe another person and this chick with a platinum spiked pixie and dark-rimmed glasses. I can’t remember what she said but it was hilarious enough for me to think, “That chick is dope. I need to know her.” I was pretty tipsy by then and almost said it out loud. The conversation moved on until Anna said something about the white-haired chick’s book. White-haired chick said something back. I usually use the fake it ‘til you make it method but that night, I was alcohol brave and said, “What’s your book about?” White-haired chick started telling me the plot.
“Wait, are you Shanna?!” I say, rhyming with banana.
“No, I’m Shanna,” she says, rhyming with Shawna.
“Oh my God!” I said, gushing about how great the book is, how honored I was to meet her, how reading her book made me decide to change to the historical present. I was fawn-y as fuck, but she didn’t remember it that way. Two years later, sitting on her big bed in her gorgeous villa in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, petting her new dog, Jackpot, she said, “You weren’t fawn-y at all. You were cool and fun and smart and funny and I knew we were going to be forever friends. Sisters.”
Forever friends. We were supposed to be.
After that AWP, we chatted frequently. She talked me down from this ledge or that and I reciprocated. She gave me genius writing advice, tried to talk me out of doing yet another master’s degree (this time in Creative Writing) because she knew that the thing I needed the most was to sit my ass in a chair and just fucking write.
We stayed in touch as I went back to grad school anyway, always talking about trying to meet up at the next AWP (Tampa) but didn’t get to. Or what if I went to Houston (where she was living at the time) for spring break to see my sister? We could meet up then and catch up in person. Squeeze each other. It never came to pass.
But then, just after I decided to take a year off to move THO and the kids overseas and just BEFORE (like, literally, a week before) packing up my whole house, I went to Houston. I stayed with my sister. My mother drove down from Arkansas. Since they mostly like to spend time with the kids, I pawned my four off on them and made my getaway to meet up with Shanna for lunch.
We polished off two bottles of wine. We made our way through a gorgeous charcuterie plate. I think maybe I ate a steak-frites? I don’t remember because I was so hammered. I do remember we talked about everything. We sat at that table from lunch until well after dark. We got our server to let me bum a smoke. We stood out in the parking lot, swaying with a summer day buzz, me smoking and her vaping. We poked at our desserts, talked more. “I guess we should get out of here,” she finally said, the restaurant staff politely mopping under every table but ours.
“Shit. I don’t think I can drive,” I said.
“Fuck it. I’ll get us an Uber to my place and we can chill until you’re sober enough. Or you can stay the night. We have plenty of room!”
We Ubered there. I met her best friend and soon-to-be-ex partner and her gorgeous doggie, Zoe who honored me with tons of kisses. When her partner tried to take Zoe back out to the living room, Zoe found a loophole and her way back onto the bed to lick my face again. Shanna and I lounged in her giant soft bed, the TV on for background noise, talking about writing and publishing and the future of those things for both of us. Another couple of hours flew by.
“You should stay,” she said. “We can just talk all night.”
I wanted to. Had I not left my FOUR CHILDREN (and Aurélien was still pretty little back then) with my mom and sister, I would have talked through the night with this amazing white-haired chick who never bristled at a single childhood story. In fact, every time I told her something horrendous from my past, she one-upped me with her own crazy story. Nothing shocked her. There was zero shame. It was like having a conversation with myself only much smarter and more eloquent and witty as fuck. I never wanted it to end. She walked me out to the street to wait for my Uber, we took turns farting. She belched loudly and then said, “Kiss for ya,” something I would come to know as a Shanna-ism. She called me to make sure I got to my car alright and that my Uber driver wasn’t a sicko rapist. She texted me to make sure I got home alright. I felt such glee and gratitude at being so henned over and loved by someone I looked up to so much, felt such a sisterhood with.
We texted often. Took turns picking each other up. We both went through painful transitions in our relationships and dark neurochemical valleys, but always took time to send each other an emoji kiss or a short message. We checked in when things got serious. She talked about coming to see me in France, staying with me awhile, but in the end, moved to San Miguel de Allende, a writers’ mecca. “Come visit me here,” she said, over and over. “I’ve got a million miles piling up not being used. I’ll get you a ticket.” It was never the right time.
And then, finally, it was. The perfect time. I was back in Indiana, finishing up the final year of my MA and had a long weekend. I had enough money saved up to buy a plane ticket. I moved some things around with classes and work so I could stay with her for a whole week. She had a driver meet me at the airport. “I’ve already taken care of everything, including tip,” she said, generous (spoiling) as always, knowing I had left my marriage and was trying to eke out a life as a middle-aged student.
Our reunion was like two chihuahuas turning around and around. We squeezed and gushed and even cried a little. Took turns talking.
I knew Shanna’s childhood was hard. It was something we had in common—weird childhoods that don’t prepare us to know “how to be” like other, “normal,” people. Childhoods that forced us to fake it until we make it, turning us into eternal hustlers, trying to figure out who we are, making us creatures akin to what a turtle bred with a porcupine might produce, at least on the outside, the inside always giving, sometimes too much.
Her knees were fucked. She apologized for not being a good tour guide. “I didn’t come here for Mexico,” I said, and meant it. I just wanted to spend as much time breathing the same air. She took me out anyway. We taxied to a restaurant where I ate cactus and drank the best margarita I’ve ever had. “It’s the Don Julio blanco,” she insisted. We walked back, even though it was blocks and blocks of round-stoned roads and at any moment, she could trip and fall on her messed up knees. I followed, took pictures of a world of color and heat and blinding beauty.
She had to spend the rest of the day in bed. “I told you!” I said, taking my turn being the hen, bringing her cups of tea, sitting on the foot of her bed, petting Jack. It was like she was holding a good ol’ French salon. When I got the sense she was talked out. I’d beg off to do homework, leaving her to catch up on emails, calls, social media. I combed the kitchen cupboards and cabinets to make something so we wouldn’t have to go out again. I made guacamole with the best avocados I’ve ever tasted.
The next day, she took me to a party out in the country. It was like a concert, but also a buffet. There was a cover charge. The scenery was breath-taking and otherworldly. I don’t know if this thing was made for all the rich gringos or what but there was a real, gorgeous mariachi band whose singing brought me to tears. The food still haunts my dreams. She waved the server to our table, “Bring us two banderas, por favor,” she said, explaining that she was about to change my life. The server brought me a small glass of Don Julio blanco and a shot of something red. “It’s sangrita,” Shanna said. “I have tried a million times to replicate it but none of the recipes I’ve found come close!” And she was right, it changed my life. I made a duck face as I sucked on my lime wedge. We stepped away from the party for a smoke.
We sat under a tree, the branches messing with my “galaxy”-colored hair, the bright Mexican sun filtered through the leaves and cast funny shadows on our faces. We were drunk and happy and laughing at everything. We talked again about her coming to France. We spoke with that certainty you do when you make plans with a buzz. “We’re going to make that happen,” she said in response to my idea, my pleading for her to come stay with me and help me figure out what did and didn’t belong in my memoir. She looked like she meant it. “I’m fucking serious,” she said. “I’m gonna become one of your kids!” Nothing would have made me happier.
A voice rang out through the yard, someone strummed a guitar slowly. “Oh my god, we’re missing her!” She had brought me to this party to see this “butch” lesbian singer. Back at her place when she said it, I had kind of shrugged. I’d meant it when I said I was there to see her and not Mexico. I went along with it because taking me seemed to fill her with excitement and I liked seeing that. But as we settled back into our seats, the voice belted out again. It was gravel and silk and cream and sand, this voice, its crescendo, its staccato. I shivered, watched as goosebumps rose on Shanna’s arm. Her eyes met mine like, “See?”
The song changed, an American oldy. Shanna and I ran to the dance floor. We shook and bumped and laughed ourselves raspy. After the set, Shanna saw me staring at the singer. She suddenly pushed her chair back and stood, reached out her hand. I took it, confused. “Let’s go meet her,” she said and was off, dragging me behind her through the crowd. With no fucks to give, she walked right up to the singer whose name we heard was Lady Zen and gushed. Zen and her gorgeous partner invited us to sit down and have a drink. “They make their own mezcal here on this farm,” Zen said and ordered us all one. She showed us how you take a drop of the liquid and put it in your palm. “Rub your hands together and,” she breathed from the book of her hands, “invoke the spirit of the mezcal. Then you drink it.” She dipped an orange slice into a pile of spice that looked and tasted like a homemade version of Tajín. “What are these?” I asked, pointing at a pile of something on the saucer next to my glass. I suspected I knew the answer. “Crickets,” Zen confirmed. “You can have mine, joj,” Shanna said, passing me her saucer, the table erupting with laughter.
When I guy kept coming over, trying to get us to dance with him, we decided to move our little sub-party back to Shanna’s place, buying a couple bottles of mezcal and stopping to get more smokes. We talked and laughed and smoked and sang and smiled late into the night. We swapped numbers and Facebook info before they left. I discovered just minutes later that Lady Zen accidentally left her hat in the bathroom that adjoined my room, the closest from the living room. I put it on and took a tipsy selfie.
“I need tacos!” Shanna called from her room at the other end of the house.
“Who DOESN’T?!” I answered.
“Come call us a taxi, since you speak better Spanish you little show-off. Izquierda,” she said, referring back to a conversation I had had with our taxi driver where I had remembered the word for “left.”
I tried several times. I could understand but had no clue how to say where we needed to go and why. In the end, the taxi lady said it would be an hour wait. “No gracias!” Shanna slurred. “Necesitamos tacos. Ahora!” She threaded her head through the strap of her handbag. “Vámonos!” She said. I tried to argue. What about her knees? About how far away the taco truck she wanted was. “No, not that one. It’s closer but the other one is worth the walk.” It was called Sally’s or something like that. Billy’s? “What about the cartel?” I said, half joking.
“Fuck the cartel,” she yelled to the empty street. She told me that she kept a pair of “super sharp sewing scissors” in her handbag just for that purpose. “Cartel dude rides up on his little motorcycle, puts a knife in my face and asks for my bag, I say, ‘un momento’ and I pull these fuckers out and …” she made a slicing movement with her empty hand.
It was a long walk. Even for me, though my knees weren’t that much better than hers but when we pulled a stool up to the counter of that taco truck and sat eye level with the giant griddle where the taco guys were stir-grilling ground meats, I forgot every step of our walk there.
I won’t try to describe the tacos. There aren’t words, for one. For another, the religious experience that was the eating of those tacos is too sacred to share.
Thankfully, we were able to get a taxi back to Shanna’s place. We spent the next day recovering from it all. I’d go in her room, sit at her feet, pet Jack, talk for a few hours, go do some homework, come back, swap stories, laugh, cry, hug. She ordered us delivery from another restaurant she liked.
Our talks got quieter. Less chihuahua-y. It was like we were preparing ourselves. I would leave the next day and neither of us were happy about it. She joked I could just stay. “Fuck grad school. You don’t need another masters anyway.”
How I wished. How I wish.
We stayed in touch. At first texting a couple of times a week until things fizzled out to bi-weekly emoji love notes again. Pop-up catch-ups. “But you know my heart has a tiny orgasm every time I get a long, heartfelt catch-up from you,” she texted.
Spring came. Another AWP. This time in San Antonio. It coincided with my spring break so I flew to Houston to see my sister. I wished Shanna was driving distance again. I could just pop over and see her, let Zoe-dog give me kisses. But she wasn’t coming. Travel was perilous for her. Airplane rides had started to give her unexplained pulmonary embolisms and it just wasn’t worth it. Plus, there were covid rumors. They were discussing whether or not to cancel the conference. I was already in Texas—flying out from San Antonio—so I had to go whether AWP happened or not. The conference was like a ghost town. The book fair—which is normally anxiety-inducing because of the crowds—was anxiety-inducing because of the silence. A week after I flew home, CNN misreported that Trump was threatening to ban travel to and from Europe because of covid, sending me rushing around trying to get permission to leave (well, deciding that I was leaving, permission or not) because I didn’t want to be stuck in the States, separated from my children who were home with one parent. What if THO got sick? Who would take care of them? I made it out, as you know, in the nick of time.
By then, Shanna was mostly okay, still recovering from getting both knees replaced. We checked in weekly or so.
At the end of November, I took a covid test as a pre-op step toward a scheduled hysterectomy and the test came back positive! In response to my announcing it on Facebook, Shanna wrote to say she was feeling ill. She thought it was just a cold and covid tests were coming back negative but she was definitely feeling symptoms. We had a long conversation that started with Messenger chat, moved to voice chat and then she just called me and we talked for another hour. We were both laid-up in bed—she with the early days of long-haul covid, I recovering from my hysterectomy which was a way bigger deal than I had planned—we had nowhere to go and just indulged in being in bed jail to spend basically the day talking to each other. When my tramadol started to kick in, I launched into a diatribe about the perils and annoyances of being back in my marriage. I sensed this annoyed her but was powerless to stop. Finally, she said, “I need to walk Jack,” which might have been true but had become our way of hanging up.
She kind of ghosted. I’d send our usual emoji love and find she’d seen it but hadn’t reacted. Hadn’t answered. I had gone too far in my marital complaints. There she was, in physical, mental and emotional pain, alone in Mexico, going through a divorce she really only half-wanted and I was bitching about the ass-lint my partner was leaving on the toilet seat. Even I was annoyed with myself. I wrote her a long apology, blaming tramadol and privilege. She made a joke. I asked for her address because I had been collecting a box of French stuff for her.
She wouldn’t give it to me.
She said there was no regular mail service. That only FedEx and UPS were delivering. She said she’d try to find out and give it to me. “I’d love a box from Provence right now.”
Nothing for weeks.
On March 10, I wrote, “I don’t write you because it’s dark times but I love you every day.” I was going through my own valley. It’s not important why. 2021 as a year is enough of a reason. I just wanted her to know that, though I had nothing nice to say—and that I’d probably go back to bitching about ass-lint--I was thinking about her.
I’m a lot. My family always said I was “an actress” and “a drama queen.” I’ve seen the amused eye rolling from friends. The well-would-you-look-at-the-time bow outs. I know I can be “a bit much.” And the best solution for that is for me to temper. To back away a bit. Let the friend have some space. Friendships are cyclical. Sometimes, you’re okay and you can’t get enough of that dynamic person. And then, like eating a chocolate cake by yourself in one sitting, they become “too much” and you just need some time to digest. I get it. So, I backed away.
In the months of March and April, she “liked” a few of my Facebook posts, a few of my Instagram photos, but other than that, continued to ghost. Still, I saw it as a sign that she was coming back around. That an online reunion was nigh. Soon, she’d surface, and we’d be back in sistery love.
On April 27, after I posted that I’d had something published, she “liked” it and signed up for my Substack newsletter. She sent me an email message through Substack that read, “We’re all stars now, In the joj show.” I wrote back, “Yay!!! :D <3” but nothing more. I was afraid she’d bolt if I wrote more than that. My message was a “I see you and I’m here when you’re ready for more and I love you.”
One week later, she killed herself. I wouldn’t know until five days after that.
I got my first vaccination shot on Wednesday. It was a miracle! I didn’t think my age category would be able to get jabbed until mid-June, but Macron had announced that obesity would now be considered a worthy comorbidity and worthy of the vaccine! Thursday morning, I thought about reaching out to her, to let her know that I’d have my second jab in June and that now that I was all healed up from my surgery and everything was good for my kids, I’d be on the plane as soon as borders opened. I could rush to her side and Malcolm her. I’d bring her tea when she wanted and I’d go back to my own room when she needed space. But Thursday was my daughter’s birthday. Friday, I needed to finish some writing and get things ready for my daughter’s party. Saturday was all day teenie bopper campout. Saturday night, when all the teens had been served and were nestled into a tent on the front lawn to talk and play with the birthday girl’s new Ouija board, I sat down on the couch to check in with Facebook for the first time all day.
I saw Shanna’s avatar. My first thought was, “Yay! She’s back!”
It said, “Shanna spent the last few weeks in Houston getting medical care.” Written in the third person. So, Shanna was playing a joke? No, it was someone writing for her. Maybe she was in surgery or something.
The words “Shanna took her life” popped out.
No. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.
I just kept saying no. There were seven teens on my lawn. I needed a pic of them playing Ouija. Shanna’s gone. I have to keep it together for the girls. Shanna’s dead. Dead is permanent. There’s no way to pause. She can’t come back. Why? What happened? I have to get up in the morning and make a huge American Brunch for these girls. I have to go to my room where I can scream and wail and not scare other people’s children. My own children. I wail. I rock on my bed and wail. The same sound I’ve released at the deaths of five of my children and one other friend a decade ago. How can I go on without her? I’ll have to get up early to make biscuits. I’ll have to bake the bacon for twelve people. Shanna was on her way back! What happened? Why did I temper myself? What if I …..
It didn’t matter. What-ifs and shoulds wouldn’t bring her back, but they still kind of did. I relived our past few months. I scrolled through her Facebook feed. Our Messenger chat window. I hadn’t gotten to look at my feed well in days. Shanna’s face was everywhere, tagged in tribute, hanging out with all the famous writers she knew, it was a slap and it was a gift. To remember that so many people loved her as much or more than I did—was that possible? I combed through my own photos of our time together and realized I had none of her face. We weren’t selfie people and we never really hung out in a group where anyone would take our pics together. Our friendship was like siblings. We took pics of things around us, not each other, not ourselves. Her face is nowhere in my photos. Her hands, yes. A tuft of platinum hair in the corner of my photo of a wall or a tree or a cactus. A picture of her back as she walks in front of me—a walk that would take her a day to recover. I wanted to scream into the photos, “Turn around! Let me see this sun on your beautiful face!” But she was gone. Walking away in every pic.
Obsessed, hoping that this was a movie and that at any moment someone would fess that it had made it up, that it wasn’t true. Instead, Facebook was splashed with more and more photos and tributes. I rocked and cried, repeating no like a mantra. Read some more on Facebook, people with their stories bringing Shanna to life in color, changing my mantra to yes, yes, yes she was a hero! No, she couldn’t be gone. Yes, she was a miracle. My heart swelling and breaking at once as I read words of love and adoration and grief from the people I know Shanna held dear. Someone Shanna loved reached out to me after seeing my shock and talked me down from my own self-blaming, self-destroying spiral, reminding me that we’re just borrowing these bodies and that all people are energy. Shanna is not gone. It felt like a fresh from the dryer blanket hug but made me cry all that much harder. It kept on this way, people loving her, remembering her, telling about their favorite moments. All of us trying to comfort one another.
I wished she could see how much we all loved her. Part of me knew she already knew.
I stayed up and cried until my eyes were swollen closed. I cried myself to sleep, dreamed she was here with me, woke off and on all night, hearing her voice, but no, that was my voice, waking myself up as I talked to her aloud in my dreams. I woke before dawn, knowing I needed to make biscuits but unable to do anything but stare down at my youngest child and cry. I heard Shanna’s voice in my head, “That child is delicious,” she said so often. She was so looking forward to meeting him and his sleeping face was a reminder that would never happen in this life.
I heard slumber party voices start to stir out in the yard. I put on a sweater and tiptoed out to the tent. Everyone had slept just fine. I felt like I had been hit by a truck and said so. To their confused faces, I decided to be as honest with them as I am my own children, from whom I hide very little. “Listen, full disclosure, I’m limping pretty hard because I found out one of my best friends committed suicide. I’m going to go to the kitchen and start brunch but the whole idea of y’all helping me is up to you—whether you want to hang out with a weepy old person. Either way, I need the distraction of cooking.”
“Can we hug you?” One of the girls said. I revel in my children’s hugs. They are my daily medicine. These were strangers’ children, so I hesitated. How would I have wanted an adult to act? I think I would have wanted to see honest vulnerability behind the strength of someone trying to move forward, so I said, “Yeah, okay” and let them scoop me up in a slumber party hug. “Chow in an hour, yeah?”
They played Just Dance while I cooked breakfast. I made it through bacon, silver dollar pancakes, cinnamon and brown sugar oatmeal, cream gravy, buttermilk biscuits and scrambled eggs. All on the raw verge of exploding into tears. How Shanna used to talk about just letting me adopt her so I could cook for her. How she would laugh at all this young womanhood, this raucous, obnoxious joy. How I wish I could see her tuck into a plate of biscuits and gravy.
As the guests’ parents picked them up, one by one, I got closer to being alone again with my grief. I was exhausted in every possible way. If Shanna couldn’t beat it, who could? Was I next? I thought about how, at least once a month, I’m slapped and shaken by the darkness, dragged to bed by depression I know is the product of nature and nurture. The remnants of earlier days bubbling up and my inability to ward them off with voices in my head reminding me I’m just a drama queen, shake it off, you’re not bleeding, others have it so much worse, think of your children.
Is that where Shanna was? To that place of exhaustion where you just can’t fight it anymore? How many times have I been there? How many times has just the right person at the right time engaged or listened or told me about their own ass-lint annoyances, helping the moment pass so I could get through another hour, day, weekmonthyear? Had I ever been that for someone? Could I have been that for Shanna?
Or was it less dramatic? Was it the other kind of ledge where it’s just a matter of fact that you see no other peaceful outcome? Was she crying when she ended it? Or did she just take a deep breath and smile, knowing the pain would soon be over?
I’m hurt and scared because I’ve been to that ledge. I know that pain it takes to get there. I know the loneliness and brokenness it takes to do the deed (though I was too chicken about pain to do it in any effective way).
It feels selfish to mourn this way. I do it publicly because I want people to know her. She deserved to be known. And people would have benefitted from knowing her. They would have learned things about themselves.
I mourn her. My beautiful, truly stunning friend. Her humor and generosity and brazen honesty that was like a glass of cold water after working out. She was like a good cry, cleansing like that. But I also mourn that memoir she was writing. We just talked about it. “It’s percolating” she said but she was using all her energy to fight covid. That memoir could have healed so many. And it will never be finished and out into the world.
I think her suicide might have cured my ideations. I think about how I feel right now. Just shocked, stunned, gut-punched over and over. If I ever made even one of my loved ones feel like this… I’ll live as a gift to myself. I’ll spare others what I’m feeling now.
I feel guilt for the public grieving because every condolence feels like it’s about me. It has to be. This is people loving me and loving her through me and she deserves every gram of love. But it feels like I’m making it about me and that’s not what it is. I want to hear people praise her. And not only because she’s gone. But because of who she was. She was amazing. She was strong and quick and hilarious and so fucking brave. She was complicated, too, though. She was very human. A hedonist of the best brand.
There are so many layers of it. Like, I miss her. She’s gone. I’ll never get to see her again, hear her voice call me Buttercup. Hear her laughing. But also, she was so sad and lonely and desperate. It’s the suddenness of it. I had no time to prepare. No inkling things were to that point. And then there’s regret. The regret is the worst part. Futile and selfish and egotistical to think that I could have done anything but postpone what may have been the inevitable and only for my own reasons, so I’d have her for just a little while longer. She’s irreplaceable, y’all. She was a miracle.
How can I want her back so so badly and at the same time be so relieved for her that her pain is finished?
I’ve been talking about her all week. Posting about her. Trying to bring her back to life by shoving her in people’s faces. And though the response has been love, it’s love for ME. I have to find a way to make people love HER. If you’re reading this, if you’ve made it this far in my rant, please buy or checkout her book from your library. Please PLEASE read her words. Carve out a place in your life for her. Celebrate her with me.
I’ll end with this. Someone very wise today on Facebook said (I’m paraphrasing) how surprising it can be when something that happens to every other human happens to us, like we’re surprised to find out we’re not some other species.
That’s where I am right now. This week. In shock that this has happened. Not just to Shanna, but to all of us. To me.
Your regularly-scheduled episodes of the joj show will return next week.