Struggling to Say Goodbye

Closure.

As I've mentioned before, it's an important thing.

Because you see, when someone dies, and you don't get a chance to say good-bye, they remain alive in your heart, even though you know, rationally, that they are gone.

That's where I'm at right now....

Struggling to picture my vivacious smiling friend, lying cold and expressionless in a coffin.

I. Can't. Do. It.

She was a tiny, tiny person. But she had a huge presence. The phrase "larger than life" applied to her in every possible way. I can't imagine her silent and unsmiling, no matter how hard I try.

She had so many funny little mannerisms and quirks. She was just a ray of sunshine. I know that survivors tend to deify people who have passed on...to focus on their good qualities and disremember the bad, but with my friend, there's nothing bad to disremember.

Not that she was perfect. She wasn't. But that was part of what made her so lovable. She was a real person; genuine. She was who she was and made no apologies for it.

I couldn't go to her funeral, which was in Houston. I was in Wisconsin when news of her death came, and neither finances nor circumstances would allow for me to fly down and say goodbye to my friend.

So for now, she lives on. In my heart, my memory, and my reality.

I know she's no longer in this world. But I can't seem to let go of the idea that it's all a dreadful mistake.

HOW CAN THIS WORLD BE EMPTY OF HER?

I can't delete her phone number from the preset menu on my cellphone. I can't delete her from my facebook friends list. I can't delete her from my email address book. Because that would mean accepting that she's gone. And I'm just not ready to do that yet.

Maybe, if I had seen her lying there I could. But without the brutal reality of that sight...I just can't.

I wonder if that feeling will ever go away.



Hvil i fred kjære venn Lisboa (thanks M, for the Norwegian). Someday our Flinstone feet will meet again.

I just know it.

(Feet clockwise from Top: Nina, BA, AA, and Lisbeth)